> I'm a big advocate for renewables, but it's hard to not also advocate for nuclear to be in that mix.

It's not hard to argue that new nuclear should be added to the mix. The cost and time required to build them is non trivial. During that entire construction time you can build renewables substantially faster and for a lower price. And while you're building the prices continue to go down, meaning it gets ever cheaper. Then there's also the cumulative CO2 savings of getting the green energy faster, 1GW in 15 years requires 15 years of lost CO2 savings, but a 1 GW of renewables in 2 years saves you 13 of those 15.

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SecretDreams 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> The cost and time required to build them is non trivial. During that entire construction time you can build renewables substantially faster and for a lower price.

They're not mutually exclusive. If time and money were the only considerations in life, I'd only have pets instead of some kids too. We'd never go to war because it would be expensive and costly. I'd drive only gas cars because they're cheaper and easier to fuel up. And so on and so forth.

Nuclear takes more time and money, but it is great for the diversification of your energy grid. It will likely outlive either of us. It will produce jobs for generations and a RELIABLE base load for as long as it exists. It will not easily be at the whims of different politicians of the day because of the momentum required to get it going in the first place.

The list goes on. We shouldn't make energy decisions based only on time and money in an economy where other choices don't play by those same rules.

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_aavaa_ 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Except they are mutually exclusive. Money spent by utility companies (or by taxpayers more broadly) to add new generation is not infinite, every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar not spent on other renewables.

	▲	SecretDreams 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Do you also believe they're eventually going to balance the budget and tackle governmental debt?

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dalyons 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For better or worse, we live in a highly capitalist world, and most western electricity is an open market. In this construct we only make decisions based on money.

The markets won’t do it, because nukes don’t make any capital sense to invest in, so the only way you can build nukes is nation states forcing it. Forcing the populace to pay extra for very expensive power that will only get even less competitive over the 30+ year lifetime… is not a popular move. It works only in single party states (eg china)

This is just the reality of economics and the world we live in

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SecretDreams 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Power build outs are rarely driven by cost structures in a vacuum, or we'd all still be digging for coal. They're regularly driven by policy. It is a farce to think electricity choices are entirely capitalistic in nature, although maybe that's the case in some localized regions that probably (and regularly) hold other backwards policies in the name of "capitalism".

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dalyons 3 hours ago | parent [-]

So your answer is use the state to force people to pay more for less competitive energy? There isn’t another choice here.

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SecretDreams 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The state's role is to help shape policies that might help people over a time horizon greater than a couple of years. Often, this means current people are supposed to subsidize the world for future generations. This used to be the societal handshake that let kids have better outcomes than their parents. Somewhere along the way, the average joe seems to have lost sight of that societal contract and is more focused on instant gratification and short term payback.

	▲	dalyons 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree in general, but you may as well be wishing for ponies and unicorns as for change here. Short term economics is the current dominant force. Also consider that if you’re wrong about the progress of clean tech, and it closes the gaps on storage, the kids “better outcome” is going to be being locked into paying higher energy prices for a lot of their life. (Of course if you’re right it will help them)

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mpweiher 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's what we are currently doing. We are using the state to force people to pay for expensive intermittent renewables.

	▲	dalyons 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Where? In every country in the world? Because the world met something like 85% of the energy growth of 2025 with renewables. All regions of the world are seeing massive and accelerating renewables buildout. All forced by the state? Extraordinary claims require evidence.