Nuclear and Renewables are mostly equivalent when it comes to their CO2 cost https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints htt

Nuclear and Renewables are mostly equivalent when it comes to their CO2 cost https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low... Solar in particular can vary wildly when it comes to the CO2/MWatt because of geography, the ratio of CO2/Mwatt in Atacama desert will be wildly different from a solar plant in Germany, but still, when averaged out, the values of the plants themselves are mostly equivalent. Yet the problem happens when costs and other externalities are thrown into the picture, a solar plant doesnt need to worry about the storage of nuclear waste, and the mining of new facilities to store that waste, nor the extraction and refining process for Uranium which has all sorts of caveats, solar needs only worry of silica extraction, rare earths (which are needed by other industrial processes anyways) and refining and production, then simple disposal. And unlike Nuclear, the waste disposal of solar panels is comparatively super straight forward. The big one is the economic cost, where solar and wind heavily undercuts nuclear energy production https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-2017/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... And solar/wind can be expected to continue falling in price as technology continues to advance and economies of scale pick up the slack, same is not the case for nuclear technology, where safety requirements balloon up the price of the plants, waste management, uranium extraction, and in a competitive disrupted market such as the modern market of energy production, nuclear plants are falling by the wayside as a consequence of continued delays, ever increasing safety requirements and waste management fees increases. Lastly, nuclear plant construction, is neither "easy, nor speedy". it is an absolutely gruesome afair which has lead to the bankrupcy of many companies https://www.powermag.com/more-losses-for-firstenergy-fes-seeks-policy-backing-amid-bankruptcy/ https://www.powermag.com/more-losses-for-firstenergy-fes-see... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/westinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/westinghouse-tos...