Without any subsidies at all, nuclear can not compete with solar + storage in costs.
If we want nuclear to survive on the grid, we need to figure out how essential is actually is, and then work out market structures or subsidies that will keep nuclear around.
It's too late for Diablo Canyon, the decision to close was made five years ago, and the only reason to extend its life now is for an emergency but if extra generation capacity on the grid. If DC's life is extended 10 years or so that way, it may provide a bridge to a new generation of SMRs, but I am extremely skeptical that SMRs will be any cheaper than other large thermal generators of electricity, and those cants compete on costs now.
No, he's right, nuclear is held back by red tape. The energy density of nuclear is so high it beats literally everything. Sans pointless laws or subsidies there is no reason to believe nuclear is less useful than renewables.
>The energy density of nuclear is so high it beats literally everything.
Exactly. Look at the tonnage that needs to be moved around for X GW generated for Y yr. Unless you make X and Y really, really small nuclear wins handily.
The cost of dicking around with uranium ore is not apreciably different in cost than the resource extraction needed for solar panels. The amount of concrete you need to pour for a nuclear power plant isn't that different than you need for windmill footings.
The difference is that any idiot can weld up the anchoring structure for your wind turbine or wire up your solar panels whereas everyone loses their shit if the f-ing employee kitchen sink in a nuclear facility isn't assembled by someone with a special certification and checked by two more.
Nuclear contamination potential is no different than any other industrial activity humans engage in with poisonous materials at that scale and when we spill it it has the nice side effect of being and going away over time. You can't say that about heavy metal laced mine tailings leeching into a watershed or the various chemicals humanity has cooked up over the years and then dumped in the ocean. People just get their panties in a knot over nuclear contamination because "omg invisible" or something like that.
>Pray tell, how long do you expect to live, and many centuries is your definition of "going away over time"?
Anything that's "death soon or guaranteed cancer later" levels of energetic won't be lasting centuries because physics.
Centuries is infinitely faster than the myriad of substances that don't go anywhere unless we pick them up and move them. Browse the EPA's national priority list for examples.
Nuclear is no more of a environmental contamination hazard than any other similar scale human activity involving nasty stuff.
>Anything that's "death soon or guaranteed cancer later" levels of energetic won't be lasting centuries because physics.
I don't know which "physics" you're referring to, but here are the half-lives of just the most common isotopes (out of OVER 100) released in Chernobyl.
iodine-131:
8.04 days
caesium-137:
30 years
strontium-90:
29.12 years
plutonium-241 (decays into Americium-241):
14.4 years
Americium-241:
430 years
Remember, these are HALF-LIFE numbers, meaning half the isotopes will still be radioactive after these time intervals.
Having shit magically go away by itself is such a massive plus.
Imagine how contaminated that part of the world would be if Chernobyl released equally dangerous (like remediation workers dying in the same amount of time) levels of thallium.
