this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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For countries with a lot of money to spend and a lot of time to spare
The best time to build a nuclear reactor was 30 years ago, but I am sceptical that we can build the storage capacity to fully and reliably decarbonise with renewables while similtaniously decarbonising transport. This on a global scale using extremely sought after rare earths that we posess relatively little of.
I'm not. Batteries are cheap and only getting cheaper. With sodium batteries they are also made from abundant materials.
There are no rare earths in lithium-ion or sodium-ion batteries. Also do you think uranium grows on trees? We are running out of cheap uranium fast, even without new plants.
For long term storage we'll need hydrogen and methane. So we still need to build the facilities to produce them. But we have more than enough gas caverns already. So storing them won't be a problem.
Also finally, just to be clear, i'm not against renewables, I think they will play a key role in decarbonisation, but I think that nuclear power makes decarbonisation dramatically easier. I see nuclear providing a reliable baseload (20 - 40%) to reduce the overall need for storage, while renewables cover the rest.