Nuclear power isn't an option, it's a requirement. There is simply no way that we're going to be able to generate all of the power we need with renewables. Windmills and solar panels simply aren't...
Nuclear power isn't an option, it's a requirement.
There is simply no way that we're going to be able to generate all of the power we need with renewables. Windmills and solar panels simply aren't going to cut it.
Plants that cost tens of several billions of dollars and take decades to build, owned and operated by politically connected megacorps aren't going to cut it. It's just not realistic when we need...
Plants that cost tens of several billionsof dollars and take decades to build, owned and operated by politically connected megacorps aren't going to cut it. It's just not realistic when we need to reduce CO2 emissions drastically within the next 10 years.
That's classical nuclear, not new nuclear. Any conversation about nuclear power that does not take generation iv designs into account is factually incorrect and pointless.
That's classical nuclear, not new nuclear. Any conversation about nuclear power that does not take generation iv designs into account is factually incorrect and pointless.
Any discussion that doesn't consider a technology that may or may nor be commercially ready in the next 5-10 years is pointless? I can see why you'd want to argue strongly for this tech. But after...
Any discussion that doesn't consider a technology that may or may nor be commercially ready in the next 5-10 years is pointless? I can see why you'd want to argue strongly for this tech. But after a little googling my big question is what makes you so confident in generation IV when there are only about 10 generation III reactors in the world? To be clear I see the promise in nuclear but in the short term (which is really the only term we have) isn't building new plants gonna cause lots of new emissions and only start making a difference at best right as we are running out of time to stop the feedback loops? It just doesn't seem like this tech will be ready in time.
Because this tech was built and successfully operated for five years in the USA, back in the 1960s. All the myths that it may or may not work are just that - myths, with no basis in reality. It's...
Because this tech was built and successfully operated for five years in the USA, back in the 1960s. All the myths that it may or may not work are just that - myths, with no basis in reality. It's already a proven technology. It isn't going to be ready in the next 5-10 years. It was ready and working fifty years ago. It was shelved because thorium-based designs were useless for producing weapons-grade materials (which we wanted for warheads), and because there was no obvious way for it to make money for itself (which is still a problem). It's electricity costs are so cheap they aren't profitable to the company operating them.
As for stopping the feedback loops, there's only one way I know to do that, and it's dyson dots. Block about 0.25% of the sunlight with a solar sail array at L1, and you can add a few decades to the warming clock. Getting it all up there, that's not going to be easy.
Your link for "It's a proven tech" is to a wikipedia page about an experimental design which operated briefly in the 60s. Not to diminish the idea. I'm having a hard time squaring "resurrecting an...
Your link for "It's a proven tech" is to a wikipedia page about an experimental design which operated briefly in the 60s. Not to diminish the idea. I'm having a hard time squaring "resurrecting an arcane nuclear prototype to widescale production" with "imminent ecological collapse." Ditto, with the dyson dot proposal.
Generally I don't think tech fixes are going to do much for us. People need to get organized and start living differently. Our problem is societal and cultural as much as technological. It our way of life (in the G8) which needs fundamental intervention and an invention isn't going to innovate that away.
We need to be doing all of these things, I think. The arcane prototype has already been resurrected and is now being widely developed, so that's good. Personally, I have a hard time believing we...
We need to be doing all of these things, I think. The arcane prototype has already been resurrected and is now being widely developed, so that's good. Personally, I have a hard time believing we can find an effective way to change the behavior of most of humanity. I'd love to be wrong about that.
Good to hear. I remember reading about sodium reactors in wired or PopSci a while back and feeling generally encouraged by the potential of smaller reactors. Sad to see the only operational one is...
Good to hear. I remember reading about sodium reactors in wired or PopSci a while back and feeling generally encouraged by the potential of smaller reactors. Sad to see the only operational one is coming offline this year.
As for the "changing the behavior of most of humanity" point. First of all, its not most of humanity that needs convincing. Most of the pollution is caused by a handful of wealthier nations and in those nations just a handful organizations are doing most of the harm.
I always say the only mind and behavior you should worry much about changing is your own. Only day-to-day way to influence people I can think of is to demonstrate what change looks like and to be an advocate.
At least for the meat, I think if you could get it cheaper than the real thing, that would do the job. That does seem to be in the cards. When people roll into a McDonalds, if the veggie burgers...
At least for the meat, I think if you could get it cheaper than the real thing, that would do the job. That does seem to be in the cards. When people roll into a McDonalds, if the veggie burgers are cheaper than the beef, and taste close enough, the money is on the right side for a change.
Don't be sad that the sodium reactors are falling out of favor. The coolant in those reactors is desperate for chemical interactions of any kind. It's an insanely risky thing to do, building reactors that can chain-react with their environment and corrode or blow up everything in the reactor. That design was a poor choice from a safety perspective. Better designs are coming that don't have these problems. Safety has to be the top concern driving the designs.
It really comes down to one, and only one factor - cost to orbit. I'd do it like this. SpaceX's rockets are the first step, which gets us to A moonbase with industrial capabilities. Manufacture...
It really comes down to one, and only one factor - cost to orbit.
I'd do it like this.
SpaceX's rockets are the first step, which gets us to
A moonbase with industrial capabilities.
Manufacture basic orbital ring components (frame) there.
Ship back to Earth orbit.
Assemble the first brute-force construction ring.
Tie it to sky towers.
Now you have train-to-orbit and freight bulk shipping to and from orbit at train shipping cost levels. Now the economics are workable. It's the price tag for that first step that's the killer. Now you can build the solar array and launch it for peanuts.
That may seem like a long way to go for the solar array, but that orbital infrastructure has a myriad of other benefits. If we're going to do this, let's do it right.
Lunar manufacturing is probably not the optimal route for building an orbital ring. More cost efficient and probably faster to build a high-g launch loop for a few billion that lets you ship the...
Lunar manufacturing is probably not the optimal route for building an orbital ring. More cost efficient and probably faster to build a high-g launch loop for a few billion that lets you ship the needed materials up from Earth.
I'd be fine with that too. I've seen many proposals. Lifting it all from Earth is hugely expensive, while building it on the moon cuts that down thanks to the lower gravity. Of course, we don't...
I'd be fine with that too. I've seen many proposals. Lifting it all from Earth is hugely expensive, while building it on the moon cuts that down thanks to the lower gravity. Of course, we don't have the tech (quite yet) for a sustainable moon base aimed at manufacturing.
One other question I haven't found an answer for is just what resources exist on the moon. I've been under the impression that it's low in heavy elements, after the Theia collision formed the moon. Most of the heavy stuff stayed here, the light stuff went up there (to grossly simplify what happened). Do we even know if there's enough material up there for manufacturing, or how hard it'll be to get at it?
Those are a few of the things that would make me reluctant to tie an orbital ring to moon based infrastructure, though I believe aluminum is abundant, and I imagine there's at least the couple...
Those are a few of the things that would make me reluctant to tie an orbital ring to moon based infrastructure, though I believe aluminum is abundant, and I imagine there's at least the couple hundred thousand tons of iron that would be needed for a ring. Aside from these uncertainties though, it significantly overcomplicates things for a cost savings that only exists if all we've got is expensive, disposable rockets. Hell, we don't even necessarily need a launch loop if BFR gets anywhere near what Elon Musk's claiming for launch costs. Even at $200/kg, the cost of launching an orbital ring on rockets is only $36Bn, and that's nearly triple his extremely optimistic projection of <$75/kg.
I can't help but wonder where the tradeoff is. What is the bare minimum of a ring that we need to build, before it's stable/solid enough to start lifting things off of the ground? Does it have to...
I can't help but wonder where the tradeoff is. What is the bare minimum of a ring that we need to build, before it's stable/solid enough to start lifting things off of the ground? Does it have to be massive and stable, or can we get away with something that's more akin to construction scaffolding? What are the risks of using a lightweight stub of a ring to bootstrap the rest of itself? Is it wise to play it safe or better to save money?
Then there's the politics. If your ring is above Chinese, European, Japanese, Russian, and American airspace at the same time, how exactly does one get permission for that without at least one of the countries objecting or threatening to blast it down? How do we get everyone to agree to leaving the nationalistic bullshit behind them on Earth when we move up and out? That may end up being a more troubling issue than the physics and lift costs.
No I don't, it wouldn't even cost that much to build a full blown orbital ring, launching everything from the ground with today's rockets. Here's a link to Lofstrom's most recent paper, cost...
No I don't, it wouldn't even cost that much to build a full blown orbital ring, launching everything from the ground with today's rockets. Here's a link to Lofstrom's most recent paper, cost estimates at the end. While I think his numbers are a tad on the optimistic side, I doubt they're that off, and a high-g version would be significantly cheaper to build because it would be shorter, since most of the length of the loop comes from how long you need to accelerate to reach orbital velocity if you're limited to 3Gs, whereas hardened hardware can take tens or hundreds of Gs.
EDIT: If you didn't read the paper, Lofstrom estimates that a small orbital ring with his 3G acceleration specifications could be built for roughly $2B.
You just argued for nuclear. If the issue is that we need to reduce emissions now (and it is), then we simply can't pin our hopes that renewable will suddenly step up to the plate. I have full...
You just argued for nuclear. If the issue is that we need to reduce emissions now (and it is), then we simply can't pin our hopes that renewable will suddenly step up to the plate. I have full confidence that renewables will be the thing that can supply all of out needs. But if the tech isn't there yet, then we need a stopgap that doesn't produce carbon.
That being said, if there's any sources that say that renewables are ready right now, then I'd love to see it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-oversaw-the-us-nuclear-power-industry-now-i-think-it-should-be-banned/2019/05/16/a3b8be52-71db-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html This has been shared in...
This has been shared in this thread and posted on Tildes before, but anything not pro-nuclear doesn't generate the same attention. This guy is better informed than any of us, and it's definitely worth a read.
I can't find anything in that entire article I don't 100% agree with. He's exactly right, the existing nuclear industry needs to be phased out. The risks are too high, the costs are too high, and...
I can't find anything in that entire article I don't 100% agree with. He's exactly right, the existing nuclear industry needs to be phased out. The risks are too high, the costs are too high, and there are many better ways to go about nuclear power.
You'll notice he doesn't mention anything about thorium, thermal spectrum, or generation iv designs. That's probably because he is unaware of them. He did leave in 2012, and Gen-IV only really got rolling in around 2011. It's not like they taught thorium to nuclear engineers - the best they got was one or two hours talking about it as a footnote in an eight year plus education. Existing nuclear and next gen nuclear aren't even based on the same science, or chemistry. Thermal and fast spectrum reactors are completely different.
If you want to drum the confusion out of your head, and understand the science, you'll need to spend some time reading or watching videos on these topics. It's not the kind of thing you can learn from a quick article. I suggest everyone start right here. The person speaking is a nuclear scientist, NASA engineer, and the world's leading expert on this technology. He knows far more than the head of the NRC, more's the pity.
That's a breakdown of the entire sphere of knowledge aimed at people with no knowledge of the nuclear industry. You can stop the video once the lecture is over (at about 1.5 hours in) as it's just Q&A afterwards. Be patient, it's worth watching, even if at first you're not sure where it's going.
You're exaggerating things. Nuclear power plants don't cost billions of dollars, and they don't need decades to build once construction begins. Getting through the red tape might take decades, but...
You're exaggerating things. Nuclear power plants don't cost billions of dollars, and they don't need decades to build once construction begins.
Getting through the red tape might take decades, but that's another story.
well, they don't take decades, but the biggest constraint with nuclear is definitely the time it takes to build. even the quickest turnover for most nuclear power plants is 5 to 8 years; some have...
You're exaggerating things. Nuclear power plants don't cost billions of dollars, and they don't need decades to build once construction begins.
well, they don't take decades, but the biggest constraint with nuclear is definitely the time it takes to build. even the quickest turnover for most nuclear power plants is 5 to 8 years; some have taken double digit years, and i can't name a nuclear power plant which has taken less than 4.
How about the designs for one that costs <$100 million, is mobile, can be built in an assembly line in a matter of weeks, and is less than ten years from hitting the market?
Sounds great, let's see if the nuclear industry lets it see the light of day. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd love to be incorrect about more than the practically unavoidable collapse of...
Sounds great, let's see if the nuclear industry lets it see the light of day. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd love to be incorrect about more than the practically unavoidable collapse of the modern world. Practical matters just don't leave much room for optimism.
Oh, I can help you there too. First off, China has no brakes on this, they don't have a regulatory body to overcome, they don't have a public perception that nuclear is bad to overcome, and they...
Oh, I can help you there too. First off, China has no brakes on this, they don't have a regulatory body to overcome, they don't have a public perception that nuclear is bad to overcome, and they also have at least a ten year head start on everyone else developing thorium reactors. I guess you could call China a runaway train, and it'll reach the destination faster than anyone else.
There's the $78 billion they've put into getting 110 new nuclear plants online by 2030, and the $3.3 billion they've invested directly into molten salt reactors, with two pilot plants on the way. They are also investing in nuclear ships, nuclear cars, nuclear planes, and nuclear drones - so it's basically Fallout-world over there. A hundred billion dollars of investment in nuclear power will do that.
My point here is merely that unless the rest of the world wakes up, we'll be spending rather a lot of our GDP to purchase nuclear power systems from China. This massive investment has panicked most of the governments in the rest of the world, who are stuck with populations that hear the words 'Chernobyl' and 'Fukushima' then go into an instant riot. That's why we're seeing all of this pro-nuclear sentiment lately. The market is moving towards nuclear energy.
Not only that, we still haven't got a way to store significant amounts of electricity, which means that we need fossil fuel plants for when power requirements are high and there's no wind. Germany...
Not only that, we still haven't got a way to store significant amounts of electricity, which means that we need fossil fuel plants for when power requirements are high and there's no wind. Germany went whole hog on renewables and the reults are pretty bleak. They wind up burning loads of coal to deal with the irregular supply of renewables and their CO2/kWh ratio is pitiful compared to France, whose power is something like 70% nuclear.
If windmills and solar panels were the only renewable alternative to nuclear power that argument might kinda sorta be relevant (whether or not it is correct). But they aren't. Various water-based...
If windmills and solar panels were the only renewable alternative to nuclear power that argument might kinda sorta be relevant (whether or not it is correct). But they aren't. Various water-based power sources exist, from river based flow power to tidal power plants, not to mention the possibility of geothermal energy.
The second part of the issue is
all of the power we need
We already generate multiple orders of magnitude more than the energy we need via renewable sources. What we're dealing with is the energy we want. And while it's futile to expect the political will to handle that at all, it's not futile to expect efficiency in use can't help us out here as well.
Main argument seems to be : Which doesn't look to be the case. Costs are roughly similar (depending on the study): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
Main argument seems to be :
Every dollar spent on nuclear results in one-fifth the energy one would gain with wind or solar [at the same cost]
Which doesn't look to be the case. Costs are roughly similar (depending on the study):
Nuclear power isn't an option, it's a requirement.
There is simply no way that we're going to be able to generate all of the power we need with renewables. Windmills and solar panels simply aren't going to cut it.
Plants that cost
tens ofseveral billionsofdollars and take decades to build, owned and operated by politically connected megacorps aren't going to cut it. It's just not realistic when we need to reduce CO2 emissions drastically within the next 10 years.That's classical nuclear, not new nuclear. Any conversation about nuclear power that does not take generation iv designs into account is factually incorrect and pointless.
Any discussion that doesn't consider a technology that may or may nor be commercially ready in the next 5-10 years is pointless? I can see why you'd want to argue strongly for this tech. But after a little googling my big question is what makes you so confident in generation IV when there are only about 10 generation III reactors in the world? To be clear I see the promise in nuclear but in the short term (which is really the only term we have) isn't building new plants gonna cause lots of new emissions and only start making a difference at best right as we are running out of time to stop the feedback loops? It just doesn't seem like this tech will be ready in time.
Because this tech was built and successfully operated for five years in the USA, back in the 1960s. All the myths that it may or may not work are just that - myths, with no basis in reality. It's already a proven technology. It isn't going to be ready in the next 5-10 years. It was ready and working fifty years ago. It was shelved because thorium-based designs were useless for producing weapons-grade materials (which we wanted for warheads), and because there was no obvious way for it to make money for itself (which is still a problem). It's electricity costs are so cheap they aren't profitable to the company operating them.
As for stopping the feedback loops, there's only one way I know to do that, and it's dyson dots. Block about 0.25% of the sunlight with a solar sail array at L1, and you can add a few decades to the warming clock. Getting it all up there, that's not going to be easy.
Your link for "It's a proven tech" is to a wikipedia page about an experimental design which operated briefly in the 60s. Not to diminish the idea. I'm having a hard time squaring "resurrecting an arcane nuclear prototype to widescale production" with "imminent ecological collapse." Ditto, with the dyson dot proposal.
Generally I don't think tech fixes are going to do much for us. People need to get organized and start living differently. Our problem is societal and cultural as much as technological. It our way of life (in the G8) which needs fundamental intervention and an invention isn't going to innovate that away.
We need to be doing all of these things, I think. The arcane prototype has already been resurrected and is now being widely developed, so that's good. Personally, I have a hard time believing we can find an effective way to change the behavior of most of humanity. I'd love to be wrong about that.
Edit: You may find the list of small reactor design concepts useful. Those are the major players in this new space.
Good to hear. I remember reading about sodium reactors in wired or PopSci a while back and feeling generally encouraged by the potential of smaller reactors. Sad to see the only operational one is coming offline this year.
As for the "changing the behavior of most of humanity" point. First of all, its not most of humanity that needs convincing. Most of the pollution is caused by a handful of wealthier nations and in those nations just a handful organizations are doing most of the harm.
I always say the only mind and behavior you should worry much about changing is your own. Only day-to-day way to influence people I can think of is to demonstrate what change looks like and to be an advocate.
At least for the meat, I think if you could get it cheaper than the real thing, that would do the job. That does seem to be in the cards. When people roll into a McDonalds, if the veggie burgers are cheaper than the beef, and taste close enough, the money is on the right side for a change.
Don't be sad that the sodium reactors are falling out of favor. The coolant in those reactors is desperate for chemical interactions of any kind. It's an insanely risky thing to do, building reactors that can chain-react with their environment and corrode or blow up everything in the reactor. That design was a poor choice from a safety perspective. Better designs are coming that don't have these problems. Safety has to be the top concern driving the designs.
It really comes down to one, and only one factor - cost to orbit.
I'd do it like this.
Now you have train-to-orbit and freight bulk shipping to and from orbit at train shipping cost levels. Now the economics are workable. It's the price tag for that first step that's the killer. Now you can build the solar array and launch it for peanuts.
That may seem like a long way to go for the solar array, but that orbital infrastructure has a myriad of other benefits. If we're going to do this, let's do it right.
Lunar manufacturing is probably not the optimal route for building an orbital ring. More cost efficient and probably faster to build a high-g launch loop for a few billion that lets you ship the needed materials up from Earth.
I'd be fine with that too. I've seen many proposals. Lifting it all from Earth is hugely expensive, while building it on the moon cuts that down thanks to the lower gravity. Of course, we don't have the tech (quite yet) for a sustainable moon base aimed at manufacturing.
One other question I haven't found an answer for is just what resources exist on the moon. I've been under the impression that it's low in heavy elements, after the Theia collision formed the moon. Most of the heavy stuff stayed here, the light stuff went up there (to grossly simplify what happened). Do we even know if there's enough material up there for manufacturing, or how hard it'll be to get at it?
Those are a few of the things that would make me reluctant to tie an orbital ring to moon based infrastructure, though I believe aluminum is abundant, and I imagine there's at least the couple hundred thousand tons of iron that would be needed for a ring. Aside from these uncertainties though, it significantly overcomplicates things for a cost savings that only exists if all we've got is expensive, disposable rockets. Hell, we don't even necessarily need a launch loop if BFR gets anywhere near what Elon Musk's claiming for launch costs. Even at $200/kg, the cost of launching an orbital ring on rockets is only $36Bn, and that's nearly triple his extremely optimistic projection of <$75/kg.
I can't help but wonder where the tradeoff is. What is the bare minimum of a ring that we need to build, before it's stable/solid enough to start lifting things off of the ground? Does it have to be massive and stable, or can we get away with something that's more akin to construction scaffolding? What are the risks of using a lightweight stub of a ring to bootstrap the rest of itself? Is it wise to play it safe or better to save money?
Then there's the politics. If your ring is above Chinese, European, Japanese, Russian, and American airspace at the same time, how exactly does one get permission for that without at least one of the countries objecting or threatening to blast it down? How do we get everyone to agree to leaving the nationalistic bullshit behind them on Earth when we move up and out? That may end up being a more troubling issue than the physics and lift costs.
I think you mean a few trillion, if we could do it at all.
No I don't, it wouldn't even cost that much to build a full blown orbital ring, launching everything from the ground with today's rockets. Here's a link to Lofstrom's most recent paper, cost estimates at the end. While I think his numbers are a tad on the optimistic side, I doubt they're that off, and a high-g version would be significantly cheaper to build because it would be shorter, since most of the length of the loop comes from how long you need to accelerate to reach orbital velocity if you're limited to 3Gs, whereas hardened hardware can take tens or hundreds of Gs.
EDIT: If you didn't read the paper, Lofstrom estimates that a small orbital ring with his 3G acceleration specifications could be built for roughly $2B.
Renewable sources are being tapped today. When can these new designs be deployed?
You just argued for nuclear. If the issue is that we need to reduce emissions now (and it is), then we simply can't pin our hopes that renewable will suddenly step up to the plate. I have full confidence that renewables will be the thing that can supply all of out needs. But if the tech isn't there yet, then we need a stopgap that doesn't produce carbon.
That being said, if there's any sources that say that renewables are ready right now, then I'd love to see it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-oversaw-the-us-nuclear-power-industry-now-i-think-it-should-be-banned/2019/05/16/a3b8be52-71db-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html
This has been shared in this thread and posted on Tildes before, but anything not pro-nuclear doesn't generate the same attention. This guy is better informed than any of us, and it's definitely worth a read.
I can't find anything in that entire article I don't 100% agree with. He's exactly right, the existing nuclear industry needs to be phased out. The risks are too high, the costs are too high, and there are many better ways to go about nuclear power.
You'll notice he doesn't mention anything about thorium, thermal spectrum, or generation iv designs. That's probably because he is unaware of them. He did leave in 2012, and Gen-IV only really got rolling in around 2011. It's not like they taught thorium to nuclear engineers - the best they got was one or two hours talking about it as a footnote in an eight year plus education. Existing nuclear and next gen nuclear aren't even based on the same science, or chemistry. Thermal and fast spectrum reactors are completely different.
If you want to drum the confusion out of your head, and understand the science, you'll need to spend some time reading or watching videos on these topics. It's not the kind of thing you can learn from a quick article. I suggest everyone start right here. The person speaking is a nuclear scientist, NASA engineer, and the world's leading expert on this technology. He knows far more than the head of the NRC, more's the pity.
That's a breakdown of the entire sphere of knowledge aimed at people with no knowledge of the nuclear industry. You can stop the video once the lecture is over (at about 1.5 hours in) as it's just Q&A afterwards. Be patient, it's worth watching, even if at first you're not sure where it's going.
You're exaggerating things. Nuclear power plants don't cost billions of dollars, and they don't need decades to build once construction begins.
Getting through the red tape might take decades, but that's another story.
well, they don't take decades, but the biggest constraint with nuclear is definitely the time it takes to build. even the quickest turnover for most nuclear power plants is 5 to 8 years; some have taken double digit years, and i can't name a nuclear power plant which has taken less than 4.
5-8 years is a lot better than the who-knows-how-long it will take to solve the energy storage problems that come with renewables.
Show me a single nuclear power plant in the US with a final pricetag less than $2B, or one built in less than 10 years.
How about the designs for one that costs <$100 million, is mobile, can be built in an assembly line in a matter of weeks, and is less than ten years from hitting the market?
Sounds great, let's see if the nuclear industry lets it see the light of day. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd love to be incorrect about more than the practically unavoidable collapse of the modern world. Practical matters just don't leave much room for optimism.
Oh, I can help you there too. First off, China has no brakes on this, they don't have a regulatory body to overcome, they don't have a public perception that nuclear is bad to overcome, and they also have at least a ten year head start on everyone else developing thorium reactors. I guess you could call China a runaway train, and it'll reach the destination faster than anyone else.
There's the $78 billion they've put into getting 110 new nuclear plants online by 2030, and the $3.3 billion they've invested directly into molten salt reactors, with two pilot plants on the way. They are also investing in nuclear ships, nuclear cars, nuclear planes, and nuclear drones - so it's basically Fallout-world over there. A hundred billion dollars of investment in nuclear power will do that.
My point here is merely that unless the rest of the world wakes up, we'll be spending rather a lot of our GDP to purchase nuclear power systems from China. This massive investment has panicked most of the governments in the rest of the world, who are stuck with populations that hear the words 'Chernobyl' and 'Fukushima' then go into an instant riot. That's why we're seeing all of this pro-nuclear sentiment lately. The market is moving towards nuclear energy.
Edit: Also, this video will bring you up to speed on how this is progressing in the EU/US. Check the timecodes in the description for specific topics. In a nutshell, both countries' regulatory agencies are now ready to greenlight gen iv test plants/projects (on a small scale), and give them their highest safety ratings.
Read up on Germany. They're doing what you say they can't be done.
Not only that, we still haven't got a way to store significant amounts of electricity, which means that we need fossil fuel plants for when power requirements are high and there's no wind. Germany went whole hog on renewables and the reults are pretty bleak. They wind up burning loads of coal to deal with the irregular supply of renewables and their CO2/kWh ratio is pitiful compared to France, whose power is something like 70% nuclear.
If windmills and solar panels were the only renewable alternative to nuclear power that argument might kinda sorta be relevant (whether or not it is correct). But they aren't. Various water-based power sources exist, from river based flow power to tidal power plants, not to mention the possibility of geothermal energy.
The second part of the issue is
We already generate multiple orders of magnitude more than the energy we need via renewable sources. What we're dealing with is the energy we want. And while it's futile to expect the political will to handle that at all, it's not futile to expect efficiency in use can't help us out here as well.
compare the viewpoint o'er yonder (tildes discussion)
here too
Main argument seems to be :
Which doesn't look to be the case. Costs are roughly similar (depending on the study):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source