4 ms·
A nuclear power plant will take 10 years to come online, and will last for about 50 years. You then have the transmission problems, toxic waste problem and risk
by hndamien 8y ago
A nuclear power plant will take 10 years to come online, and will last for about 50 years. You then have the transmission problems, toxic waste problem and risks. I'm willing to largely ignore the toxic waste and risks because they are addressing a far bigger problem. So let's call them negligible (even though they aren't) and I still think nuclear today is a hard case to make. Getting these approved are large capital expenditures of around $9 billion that come online all at once. Then you have the transmission problems as mentioned.
I have not done the math but it seems that it would be faster, and more politically tenable to use decentralised solar virtual power plants and wind such that individual households become largely responsible for their own power and act in concert as the grid supplier and battery.
The main thing preventing this seems to be capital investment, regulation and political will.