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The "eco" side aren't the ones making decisions about nuclear power investment. That would be the for-profit energy companies. Maybe think a little more about w
by tstrimple 3y ago
The "eco" side aren't the ones making decisions about nuclear power investment. That would be the for-profit energy companies. Maybe think a little more about why an executive whose purpose is to generate profit doesn't want to invest *billions* of dollars and *over a decade* of construction time at a minimum and would rather put money into a wind turbine that turns a profit in under a year. The economics of nuclear power makes absolutely no sense. Literally every study into the subject confirms this. If you really want substantial nuclear power, you've got to take capitalism out of the equation. Nationalize the energy sector and remove representative democracy then you can build nuke plants like China.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoNuclear power plants and coal power plants fundamentally work the same way. Generate heat, make steam, spin turbines, make electricity. Nuclear power plants without passive safety features need extra redundancy on the cooling systems, e.g. you need backup generators. There is no way that should add billions of dollars to the price of the plant. They cost billions of dollars more because competitors (primarily coal and natural gas) lobby for rules that make them cost more on purpose, because they don't want to compete with a technology that should have a similar construction cost and negligible fuel cost. Especially when they're the suppliers of the fuel. Fortunately for them nuclear is scary and then you can lobby not just for safety measures that make sense but also for ones with poor cost benefit ratios that only serve to make the plants uneconomically expensive. Then the coal companies shrug and say the market has decided.