We do. Moreover, we need to overbuild those sources by yet nknown amounts because they are intermittent.
> This holds even when you apply the most generous assumptions when comparing them. And non-nuclear renewables are getting cheaper every day, something that just isn't happening to nuclear.
Are they getting cheaper enough? Including all the required overbuilding and all the (yet non-existent) grid-scale storage that is required for renewable energy?
> So fine, build some nuclear around the edges. Baseload is great!
Indeed. Baseload is great. And when talking about renewables their proponents almost never talk about it. Or about daily power fluctuations. About requirement spikes etc. Because we just have to believe that there's some magical solution just around the corner.
And yeah, that revolution you're talking about is definitely not going to happen precisely of the emotionally-charged discourse. And we don't really need a tech. revolution for nuclear. We're already pretty capable of building them quickly, given the political will.
The great renewable project project we're talking about? It started in 2018. On top of that "As of November 2021, [cable production] production is planned to start in 2024, and it will take four years to produce the cables required by the project." [1] Expected to be completed by 2030. [2]
So, about 10 years or more. On par with some nuclear stations. Expect costs overruns to be just as on par.
Meanwhile in China. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant. Construction of each reactor is about 6 years. Total nameplate capacity is now 6GW. Estimated cost of construction: 16 bln USD.
> So let's please get on with making that happen quickly, because every month we burn fossil fuels brings more future devastation.
Meanwhile Germany shut down its nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuels. Additionally 13% of the country is given over to corn to create biofuel which is also burned.
It's hard to be passionate about these moronic things. Especially since the renewable revolution needs to bring in probably as much of a technological revolution to become truly scalable (e.g. grid storage required at these scales is literally nowhere to be found).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Projec...