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When this was announced over 10 years ago, the overwhelming majority of people concluded it's a shame they will be replaced with coal. Fast forward ten years an

When this was announced over 10 years ago, the overwhelming majority of people concluded it's a shame they will be replaced with coal. Fast forward ten years and the use of coal is at a record low, the use of gas has not really changed in a meaningful way and overall the situation has improved significantly on its own, but especially compared to some other developed countries. E.g. the US is still at 60% fossil fuels and not going down faster than Germany. This should be a bigger problem, but it's not really talked about, and neither is the per capita consumption a.k.a. efficiency which is in the US abysmal. People should focus more on outcomes of policies and not their favorite tech. If they'd do that it would be easy to see that nuclear has existed for 70 years and it has failed to replace fossil fuels worldwide in a meaningful way. To me it's obvious the costs are prohibitive and this is unlikely to change. It hasn't thus far. If someone can get it done, by all means, but it hasn't happened. Instead we hear about small modular which was already tried in the 80s because of the high upfront investments of large plants, but those turned out not to work because of even higher per MWh costs. So it was back to huge plants which again turned out to be difficult to build. I am seeing a pattern here. Renewables are accomplishing a lot more and a lot faster and there's no need to waste resources on something else. If they can't get us to 100% they can get us as fast as possible to whatever is possible. And thus far all the predictions on what is realistic for renewables as a percentage of the grid have failed dramatically.

naasking 4y ago
> Fast forward ten years and the use of coal is at a record low, the use of gas has not really changed in a meaningful way and overall the situation has improved significantly on its own Now imagine how much lower it would be had they kept the nuclear plants.
- locallost 4y ago
  Then why hasn't the percentage of fossil fuels in the US gone down so much lower since it didn't shutdown its nuclear plants?
  - naasking 4y ago
    Are you suggesting that one country didn't have the exact same trajectory as another completely different country because of this one arbitrary variable? And you can't think of any other reason? Like the US's huge car culture, or the native oil drilling and gas production industries, or the tendency to project military power across the world to ensure a stable and cheap oil supply at the cost of human lives?
    - locallost 4y ago
      It's difficult to say I am suggesting anything considering I already explicitly wrote it: the thing people should focus on is the actual outcome. And here we have a country that uses less fossil fuels for electricity production (do not see what cars have to do with anything), and is on a faster trajectory of reduction. Claiming that it could've been even faster implies either of the two things: 1) possession of a crystal ball to view an alternative reality 2) certainty that there is no dependence between spending money on nuclear and other things I don't think that 2) is true. The disposal of existing nuclear waste will cost the tax payers over €100B [1] and sometimes it's better to make a hard cut so people can focus on the future and not the past. Either way, it's been successful. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-deal-with-energy-companies/a-36089376 https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d...

naasking 4y ago

> Fast forward ten years and the use of coal is at a record low, the use of gas has not really changed in a meaningful way and overall the situation has improved significantly on its own Now imagine how much lower it would be had they kept the nuclear plants.

locallost 4y ago
Then why hasn't the percentage of fossil fuels in the US gone down so much lower since it didn't shutdown its nuclear plants?
- naasking 4y ago
  Are you suggesting that one country didn't have the exact same trajectory as another completely different country because of this one arbitrary variable? And you can't think of any other reason? Like the US's huge car culture, or the native oil drilling and gas production industries, or the tendency to project military power across the world to ensure a stable and cheap oil supply at the cost of human lives?
  - locallost 4y ago
    It's difficult to say I am suggesting anything considering I already explicitly wrote it: the thing people should focus on is the actual outcome. And here we have a country that uses less fossil fuels for electricity production (do not see what cars have to do with anything), and is on a faster trajectory of reduction. Claiming that it could've been even faster implies either of the two things: 1) possession of a crystal ball to view an alternative reality 2) certainty that there is no dependence between spending money on nuclear and other things I don't think that 2) is true. The disposal of existing nuclear waste will cost the tax payers over €100B [1] and sometimes it's better to make a hard cut so people can focus on the future and not the past. Either way, it's been successful. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-deal-with-energy-companies/a-36089376 https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d...