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Comment by lucidguppy | Hacker News Reader

Oh look at this nuclear power ... no stop looking at solar and batteries! That would actually solve the problem!

There are still a lot of obstacles to solve with going to base solar power. But I agree we should still be investing into it. However nuclear power is an all but completely solved problem and it has huge benefits in scaling with additional nuclear industries, where as solar has (perhaps minor, perhaps not) obstacles towards massive scaling. If we wanted to guarantee clean energy production into the future, I still think nuclear is a right choice. Maybe in 30-40 years solar will have solved all its problems and be built enough to stand on its own and we don't need any more nuke plants built, but we don't really know that will be true.

It is always best to plant the trees now and then not need to harvest them later rather than not plant them now and then not have them when you do need them.

The problem with nuclear is the price. As someone else already brought up[0], nuclear is about four times as expensive as solar - and that's pretty much the best case scenario. Try to use nuclear as a peaker plants and it's going to be closer to forty times as expensive, simply because the cost of nuclear is dominated by the construction loan.

A lot of solar's problems magically disappear when you apply a nuclear-level budget to it. Less output during cloudy days? Build twice as many panels and you've solved it while still remaining cheaper than nuclear. What about night? Build wind turbines, hydro storage, and batteries Windless, dark winter nights? You've got a massive budget for a handful of 99.9%-idle fossil peaker plants with carbon capture.

Nuclear is a technological solution to an economical problem. It's sexy, but it doesn't solve anything.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44515401

eh? they are different niches tho?

solar is intermittents, nuclear is base load

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