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Next gen nuclear was developed fifty years ago for the Mars program before it was cancelled. See nuclear lightbulb research. It’s taken that long for renewable

Next gen nuclear was developed fifty years ago for the Mars program before it was cancelled. See nuclear lightbulb research. It’s taken that long for renewables to get marginally cheaper without solving the base load problem one bit. Meanwhile natural gas has dominated both.

kibwen 3y ago
You conveniently remember that nuclear power was unfairly sidelined for decades, and then conveniently forget that solar power was also unfairly sidelined for decades. "By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous... Also, "marginally cheaper" can't help but sound like sour grapes; the cost-per-watt of solar has fallen by 500x in the past 50 years (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-solar-pv-module-cost-by-data-source-1970-2020 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-...). How many hundreds of times cheaper per-watt is nuclear since then?
- civilitty 3y ago
  Solar was never “unfairly sidelined” because it was never regulated to death. That’s why it’s gotten cheaper while nuclear has stagnated.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Why is solar 3x more expensive in the US then, say, Australia? Because it is indeed regulated out of and into existence. Will the utility let you even connect solar to power your house, will the utility charge excessive fixed per-month fees for the privilege, how many hoops will your local municipality make you jump through for permitting, how many weeks or months of delay will there be, how many pointless and useless diagrams will they make you submit, how will a large installer every gain efficiency while dealing with every single city's pointless differences in . Or even, will you silly HOA allow panels, and if so, where and at what visibility?
    - civilitty 3y ago
      Because solar is already so cheap to make that transportation is a significant expense and Australia is closer to China than the US.
      - epistasis 3y ago
        That is absolutely not the case, the panels are not significantly more expensive when matched for quality.

kibwen 3y ago

You conveniently remember that nuclear power was unfairly sidelined for decades, and then conveniently forget that solar power was also unfairly sidelined for decades. "By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous... Also, "marginally cheaper" can't help but sound like sour grapes; the cost-per-watt of solar has fallen by 500x in the past 50 years (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-solar-pv-module-cost-by-data-source-1970-2020 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-...). How many hundreds of times cheaper per-watt is nuclear since then?

civilitty 3y ago
Solar was never “unfairly sidelined” because it was never regulated to death. That’s why it’s gotten cheaper while nuclear has stagnated.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Why is solar 3x more expensive in the US then, say, Australia? Because it is indeed regulated out of and into existence. Will the utility let you even connect solar to power your house, will the utility charge excessive fixed per-month fees for the privilege, how many hoops will your local municipality make you jump through for permitting, how many weeks or months of delay will there be, how many pointless and useless diagrams will they make you submit, how will a large installer every gain efficiency while dealing with every single city's pointless differences in . Or even, will you silly HOA allow panels, and if so, where and at what visibility?
  - civilitty 3y ago
    Because solar is already so cheap to make that transportation is a significant expense and Australia is closer to China than the US.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      That is absolutely not the case, the panels are not significantly more expensive when matched for quality.