"New nuclear capacity of 3.3 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 was outweighed by lost capacity of 4.6 GW. Over the past 20 years, there has been modest growth (12.6%, 44 GW) in global nuclear power capacity if reactors currently in long-term outage are included. However, including those reactors ... in the count of ‘operable’ or ‘operational’ or ‘operating’ reactors is, as former WNA executive Steve Kidd states, 'misleading' and 'clearly ridiculous'."
- #JimGreen, 2018
https://energypost.eu/nuclear-power-in-crisis-welcome-to-the-era-of-nuclear-decommissioning/
"Renewables (24.5% of global generation) generate more than twice as much electricity as nuclear power (<10.5%) and the gap is growing rapidly. The International Energy Agency predicts renewable energy capacity growth of 43% (920 GW) from 2017 to 2022. Overall, the share of renewables in power generation will reach 30% in 2022 according to the IEA. By then, nuclear’s share will be around 10% and renewables will be out-generating nuclear by a factor of three."
"Lobbyists engaged each other in heated arguments over possible solutions to nuclear power’s crisis ‒ in a nutshell, some favour industry consolidation while others think innovation is essential, all of them think that taxpayer subsidies need to be massively increased, and none of them are interested in the tedious work of building public support by strengthening nuclear safety and regulatory standards, strengthening the safeguards system, etc."
It's not "nuclear power" that is the crisis today - it's the climate change. And if you have a country shutting down zero-emission energy source, saying it will replace it by a 3x more CO2 intensive source (solar) and then replaces it with one that is 30x more intensive (fossil gas) then I say this makes the crisis worse.
@kravietz Most of your talking points were covered by the author of the piece I linked in the OP. Whose point is that even if nuclear plants were a safe, cost-effective and eco-friendly energy source (and they're none of these), there isn't enough being built to replace current plants, let alone displace fossil fueled plants. So even if we embarked on a massive project of nuclear construction (funded by ?), it wouldn't come onstream soon enough to make any difference to climate change.
Most of your talking points are based on the "for nuclear pick the oldest tech and worst-case scenarios, for RE pick the latest & best-case" fallacy.
This "hey we love nuclear but we just won't make it in time" is a perfect example.
Mmost nuclear plants are built in or under 5 years. This is the data. The two projects that anti-nuclear activists uses as flagship examples of delays - HPC and Flamanville - were delayed specifically by anti-nuclear activists by all means possible.
@kravietz I'm guessing that's only the construction phase, not including planning time before it starts, or testing and commissioning time after it finishes. But even if I accept this timeframe at face value, 5 years is a *long* time. Compare that to solar or wind that can be built in stages, with the first group of panels/ turbines coming onstream long before the full project is finished. Try that with nuclear (actually no, please don't ;)
> 5 years is a *long* time
It took 4 years to build Rampion off-shore wind farm in UK.
It took infinity to build DESERTEC solar farm in Sahara as it was started in 2010 and never completed. Another solar plant in USA was never completed and left territory contaminated with cadmium.
Same bias: you believe nuclear power plants are always delayed but renewable project are always completed in time, clean and lean.
This bias is the reason why Germany is running on gas and coal now.
