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Notes -
About the hype around nuclear power generation among conservatives. Sorry, I do not have a well articulated text to defend here, this is more of probe into the subject, since I feel I am probably missing some fundamental logic here.
It seems to me the support for nuclear energy is a sort of pet cause for conservatives. Not because of the wonders of the technology, but for what it signals.
Given the financial cost of this type of energy source compared to other low emission energy sources, I am yet to find a defense of Nuclear as a feasible strategy for lowering CO2 emissions that comes across as based, good faith argument by someone with true concern about the issue, rather than an attempt at subverting the discussion around energy transition.
Or are there people who truly believe that nuclear energy is a part of energy transition strategy so meaningful it is worth joining forces with those raise the flag as a form of subversion? Any reading recommendation of up to date, nuanced, good faith arguments for nuclear energy?
In 2025, I see the good-faith conservative pro-nuclear stance as mostly a reminiscent stance on "what could have been". It would have been absolutely viable, it would have been the better decision. Noah Smith describes the sentiment well in his introduction here.
But in 2015, this wasn't clear at all, yet. There is a long history of even experts catastrophically underestimating the exponential growth of solar and battery industrial capacity (that first graph is powerful). So in today's discussions, there's always the chance that conservatives are comparing 2015 nuclear against 2015 solar + batteries. This is a much easier proposition to defend.
But yeah, last year the US installed over 40 GW nameplate capacity of new solar. We won't ever be below that in the next 5 years, either. Grid-scale storage of this much solar might also shortly be a non-issue, since forecasts are that the world economy will produce at least 8 TWh of new lithium batteries this year. That's several hundred percent over demand, and it's hard to describe how insane that development is. That's enough batteries to put a 50kWh battery into every single new vehicle built in 2025. Since we're not doing that, batteries will get cheap enough for grid-scale storage.
Even with conservative estimates for the capacity factor of those new panels, that's the equivalent of at least 7 new reactors completed, each year. I don't think there's any case where we relax regulation sufficiently and then plan, develop (if we want to do any of the cool - small modular, thorium, ect. - things pro-nuke people want) and finance that many new reactors per year, even if we grant a 10 year lead time.
Seems to reinforce my impression that people who insist in this are either acting in bad faith, or echoing those who are.
I'm out for the serious actors who defend expanding nuclear programs, have palpable knowledge, and concern for climate change - if there is anyone who fits this description.
I'm not sure it's all bad faith and malice. I don't want to downplay the amount of uncertainty with the geopolitics and economics of renewables and storage, and the facts still change quickly.
For one, the vast majority of production capabilities (solar, wind, batteries) is in China, of course. (Trade) war would put all developer timelines in peril. Also, it's not so sure how energy pricing on a grid heavy on renewables and storage will shake out. Sweden stopped building several large wind projects because of their economics: if it's windy, all the wind parks ruin the spot market for each other and don't make money. Is it's not windy, they don't make money. Storage could change that, but of course installing to much storage to quickly could result in the same thing...
So in a way, nuclear is a classic conservative position. We know almost everything about how a nuke-heavy grid would look like. The geopolitics are far safer. We know exactly how much over budget each rector would land.
And I also believe it's important to dream big. Maybe the trump admin deregulates nuclear in a big way. Maybe some republican states move in concert, and also deregulate and unify their remaining regulations. Maybe there's a subsidies project on the scale of what other countries have been pumping into renewables. Maybe there's a Manhattan project 2.
And while I'm a firm believer in solar+batteries, I would welcome it. We really could use all hands on deck when we Electrify Everything^TM...
I don't know any highly technical pro-nuke experts, but construction physics has the analysis on the regulatory landscape
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