I don’t see a path forward without Nuclear. Europe and China has done better in this area than US. There is a bunch of fear mongering in liberal California circles about Nuclear. Well informed and technically minded people I know in Bay Area all support Nuclear power.
Frankly the media has done an awful job of fear mongering with the term “Nuclear” and “Radiation”.
At some point we’re going to have to grapple with the fact many “concerned” groups don’t actually care about climate change. Instead they use it as a stalking horse for other political projects.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47776
[2] https://apnews.com/article/technology-government-and-politic...
The group that stopped the solar installation was something called "Save Our Mesa":
> But a group of residents organized as “Save Our Mesa” argued such a large installation would be an eyesore and could curtail the area’s popular recreational activities — biking, ATVs and skydiving — and deter tourists from visiting sculptor Michael Heizer’s land installation, “Double Negative.”
The group itself is not in any way an environmental group, they claim to be locals who want to save their tourism industry.
Their own website: http://www.saveourmesa.org
> The majority of our community’s revenue comes from tourism. We lost a lot of tourism and businesses when the shrinking lake levels of Lake Mead occurred closing a nearby beach. We have struggled but built back our economy through OHV tourism. When people come and camp/hotel for a week, they buy our gas, our groceries, eat in our restaurants, use our mechanics and parts stores. This allows these businesses to thrive thus keeping us self sufficient. Feedback from many of our Snowbirds was that they would look for new places to go, that’s lost revenue. People would not come to recreate, that’s lost revenue.
> Although a majority of the state’s voters approved an energy transition ballot question last year, large-scale projects like Battle Born Solar have drawn backlash from conservationists, endangered species advocates and local businesses that cater to tourists.
But you don't need to take anyone's word for it. Here is a local group very proud to assist Save our Mesa to kill the project [5][6][7].
If you would like to read more about how environmental and conservation groups sometimes oppose renewable energy projects, you can do so [1][2][3][4].
[1] http://archive.today/2021.06.15-141516/https://www.wsj.com/a...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-wars/special-report...
[3] https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2021/06/16/true-impact-of-high...
[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-29/san-franc...
[5] https://twitter.com/BasinRange/status/1418497834949636098?s=...
[6] https://twitter.com/BasinRange/status/1323327146585022465?s=...
[7] https://twitter.com/BasinRange/status/1418665885263228928?s=...
edit: spacing
1) Save Our Mesa is the group that pushed back, successfully, against this project, to further the tourism interests in their town, according to the article and according to them.
2) Some infrastructure projects "like this" (i.e. not necessarily this one, but simply projects "like this") draw backlash from environmental groups for whatever local reason. (also, this does not mean Save Our Mesa, the group responsible for stopping this project, is an environmental group.)
3) A local group (Basin and Ranch) was happy that "grass roots killed this project" and they were "happy to help" (in an undisclosed way) -- this also does not mean that "environmental groups" stopped the solar installation "because it would be an eyesore," which is what you said in your original post.
Look, I get that environmental groups sometimes behave in ways that seem irrational, too focused on some small local issue (Basin and Ranch likes the tortoise habitat more than they like solar), but this kind of sliding different issues, takes, positions, etc., together is dishonest and shitty, whether intentional or not.
Germany hasn't, unfortunately (it decided in 2011, shortly after Fukushima, to decommission all its nuclear power by 2022).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Germ...
It's a whole bunch of dissimilar designs - maintaining all that must have been nightmare.
In comparison here in Czech Republic & in Slovakia we have a bunch of upgraded VVERs and that's it, providing a good chunk of our electricity with reasonable commonality.
But hey, it could be worse than in Germany! You can build a complete nuclear power plant with all the expense it entails and then newer run it! ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/china-closing-in-on-thorium-nuclea...