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Even more pessimistically, stopping investment into further nuclear technology (i.e. de-emphasizing it in universities as a possible career path and indicating

Even more pessimistically, stopping investment into further nuclear technology (i.e. de-emphasizing it in universities as a possible career path and indicating that demand will be falling in the open market) will accelerate its decline, and likely lead to countries becoming even more reliant on fossil fuels in the short term. The death of tooling, industry knowledge and parts manufacturing capacity specific to that industry will make nuclear plants even more unappealing. If battery tech or other energy storage takes longer than expected to come up to speed, we'll still be reliant on fossil fuels for baseload capacity. It's utopian thinking; devoting any resources to the second-best option is unacceptable, since pure renewables are just "better." There's a saying about that line of logic, isn't there? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Gwypaas 5y ago
It has already stopped. I studied engineering physics in Sweden which during the cold war had a very extensive nuclear weapons and energy research program. [1] I did the required undergraduate nuclear physics course which at the time was focused on nuclear energy. At the time a very surface level course due to being reduced in size over the years in favor or atomic and quantum physics instead. I still have Introductory Nuclear Physics [2] sitting in my bookshelf because I never had the chance to sell it, the course was changed to be centered around particle accelerators instead. That program used to be the prime source of people going into nuclear energy research and development. Today you can't even take it as an master, it died out due to everyone seeing it as a dead end career wise with the advent of renewables. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Nuclear-Physics-Kenneth-Krane/dp/047180553X https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Nuclear-Physics-Kenneth-...

Gwypaas 5y ago

It has already stopped. I studied engineering physics in Sweden which during the cold war had a very extensive nuclear weapons and energy research program. [1] I did the required undergraduate nuclear physics course which at the time was focused on nuclear energy. At the time a very surface level course due to being reduced in size over the years in favor or atomic and quantum physics instead. I still have Introductory Nuclear Physics [2] sitting in my bookshelf because I never had the chance to sell it, the course was changed to be centered around particle accelerators instead. That program used to be the prime source of people going into nuclear energy research and development. Today you can't even take it as an master, it died out due to everyone seeing it as a dead end career wise with the advent of renewables. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Nuclear-Physics-Kenneth-Krane/dp/047180553X https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Nuclear-Physics-Kenneth-...