I was involved in the nuclear industry in the 90's.

Why impose externalities on others when solar and wind are so cheap and less risky? It seems like proponents fall for technological aspirationalism without considering pragmatic consequences and risks of shoveling enormous sums of money for unnecessary risks and inefficient allocations of capital because it's seems just barely unobtainable or blocked by "them" when it's simply economically unviable.

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pfdietz a day ago | parent [-]

And it's selective technological aspirationalism. Why is unbounded optimism appropriate for nuclear but not for renewables? The engineering principle of KISS says renewables should be much more improvable, as indeed the data indicates they are.

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mpweiher a day ago | parent [-]

It's the other way around.

Nuclear works now. We just have to build it.

Intermittent renewables supplying an industrial society does not. And there is no way to get from here to there except a lot of handwaving and "magic happens here".

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/20100608webcontentchicagosli...

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mastermage a day ago | parent | next [-]

When you have to build Nuclear Reactors then this is not now. The avg. building time of Nuclear Reactors is 9-12 Years.

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mpweiher 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

6.5 years.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

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mastermage 16 hours ago | parent [-]

I am counting delays that are always occuring. There is only two reactor blocks that I know that didn't have delays in recent years.

These are build times for just single Reactor Blocks, in 2020 to 2022. https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2023-v5.pdf#...

Real examples in the last years: Olkiluoto 3 - 17 Years SHIDAO BAY-1 - 9 Years Flammanvill-3 - 17 Years VOGTLE-4 - 11 Years FANGCHENGGANG-4 - 8 Years RAJASTHAN-7 - 14 Years

	▲	mpweiher 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No you are cherry picking specific examples that fit your incorrect claim. 6.5 years is the current average.

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account42 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even more reason to start now.

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pfdietz a day ago | parent | prev [-]

PV has improved in cost/W by nearly three orders of magnitude since it was introduced, and by an order of magnitude since 2010.

Nuclear fans could only dream of this rate of improvement.

Nuclear doesn't work in the sense of being competitive. It's behind and falling farther behind with each passing day.

The best time to have given up on nuclear was decades ago. The second best time is now.

	▲	mpweiher 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Nuclear fans could only dream of this rate of improvement. Nuclear doesn't need this rate of improvement, because it was always cheap. > Nuclear doesn't work in the sense of being competitive. Empirically false. Also: if it weren't competitive, Germany wouldn't have had to outlaw nuclear, it just would have disappeared on its own. > The best time to have given up on nuclear was decades ago. Your incorrect and unsubstantiated opinion is not shared by the rest of the world.