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Thats because the NRC (and similar agencies) exist effectively to assure that the cost is such that no nuke plants ever get built. Not a single NRC approved pla

Thats because the NRC (and similar agencies) exist effectively to assure that the cost is such that no nuke plants ever get built. Not a single NRC approved plan has ever been built, and its in no small part because of the billions of dollars in paper pushing politicians/etc getting in the way of people who actually design and build stuff. Nuke plants are hardly more complex than a combined cycle gas generator, and those are pretty inexpensive. (see also Korea for an example of building plants for less than the entire GDP of a country) If solar/wind had 1/2 of the regulatory overhead to assure that say the thorium tailings from rare earth mining (neodymium/etc) never got into the drinking water/air/etc then you would never see a single new solar/windmill either.

ncmncm 5y ago
There is no reason for solar or wind to suffer regulatory overhead. They pose no existential threat if built or operated unsafely. Worst case, they fall over.
- StillBored 5y ago
  More people died in the Texas grid failure last year than have died in all the Nuke plant accidents. Unreliable power is dangerous too.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    The Texas grid failure was a product of under-regulation, not use of renewables. Responsible management requires back-up generation capacity that works when needed. What failed in Texas was that the (gas-fired) back-ups were not mandated to work when cold, and so didn't.
    - StillBored 5y ago
      A large part of the "under-regulation" is that renewables aren't required, like other parts of the system to assure availability and file offline requests. Combined with the fact that wind/solar economically pressure the reliable sources, because they only make money when the green energy sources fail, means that basic maintenance/etc gets deferred. So, sure shift the blame to the "backup sources" rather than mentioning that the wind farms were operating at something like 5% of the nameplate capacity.

ncmncm 5y ago

There is no reason for solar or wind to suffer regulatory overhead. They pose no existential threat if built or operated unsafely. Worst case, they fall over.

StillBored 5y ago
More people died in the Texas grid failure last year than have died in all the Nuke plant accidents. Unreliable power is dangerous too.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  The Texas grid failure was a product of under-regulation, not use of renewables. Responsible management requires back-up generation capacity that works when needed. What failed in Texas was that the (gas-fired) back-ups were not mandated to work when cold, and so didn't.
  - StillBored 5y ago
    A large part of the "under-regulation" is that renewables aren't required, like other parts of the system to assure availability and file offline requests. Combined with the fact that wind/solar economically pressure the reliable sources, because they only make money when the green energy sources fail, means that basic maintenance/etc gets deferred. So, sure shift the blame to the "backup sources" rather than mentioning that the wind farms were operating at something like 5% of the nameplate capacity.