PWRs are not really that complicated. They are just very hot metal rods inside a thick steel pressure vessel that boil water to make steam.

"Nuclear has had its moment. That moment is gone."

When CO2 caused climate changed is posed to be civilization altering this is a very very foolish thing to say.

Shutting down nuclear power plants prematurely was very foolish (looking at you Germany). But other than that, it’s true.

When you boil the issue down to the fundamental facts, our challenge is simply: add as much power production as fast as possible. We have no other hope to tackle the issue but to optimise for this. Nuclear is a dangerous distraction. Solar+wind is now growing faster than nuclear ever did at its peak and they’re showing no signs of slowing down. It’s the only way to get more power fast enough.

We are building power for a future where we cut all CO2 emissions. Not just those from electricity. Our second biggest priority (well third after EVs, but I’m not too worried about EVs right now, it’s a self sustaining transition) is to bring down the capital costs of hydrogen plants. That’s the key to bringing down CO2 emissions in several sectors of industry. This pairs perfectly with variable power. We’ve already seen green ammonia fertiliser plants paired with renewables and now with the Iran crisis there will be higher pressure to build more of them to be self sustained. This way also lets us distribute production which is nice to be less vulnerable in case of war.

Once green hydrogen production has reached critical mass, and growth of renewables have pushed gas power plants into more of a backup role, with low fuel consumption, they will naturally switch to hydrogen. Many of the newer ones are already ready for hydrogen and others have an upgrade path. Perhaps hydrogen consuming industry will co-locate with gas power plants to share production/storage infrastructure. This path has very low capital costs besides the ones we anyway need to make the hydrogen necessary to decarbonise industry. The gas power plants are already built in most countries that will need them.

That's a foolish thing to say because building enough nuclear, even with the fairy tale prices and times people make up, would take soooo much longer and cost sooo much more than green energy.

Even more importantly, it's very hard to compromise and downscale a project when the inevitable fossil fuel lobbyists vote against you. It's a lot easier to half a solar park project than a nuclear project.

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