I'll preface this by stating that I'm German and I'm intuitively against using nuclear. But hear me out anyhow. :)
At this point the climate crisis is bad enough that I won't even fight against nuclear as such. If you can build it safely I won't stand in your way. I'll be busy across the street, fighting against coal, oil & gas. Thing is, the time scale at which nuclear stations are constructed isn't at all the same as for renewables; starting the planning for new nuclear now isn't gonna put us on the right track to a livable future. Nuclear plants are huge; the big ones that would really be needed for a big shift like you describe would take a while to go online.
Which is okay I think; if anything, we'll need much more electricity in total anyhow as we electrify more processes.
But we'll need more low-carbon energy much before that, now more than ever.
So I'll only agree with this if it's not an either or but doing both.
Caveat: I don't trust big profit driven corporations, nor states, to run nuclear plants in an honestly safety-oriented way. I have yet to hear a proposal how the incentives could be set up to change that. If nuclear is relatively casualty-free so far, I feel that's mostly luck, and indeed there were a few close calls. Don't start arguing with me on this one please because it's not the core of my argument (here). :)
People often don't realize that intermittent renewables must be paired with backup generation or storage. But energy storage at the scale of a 100% renewable system is currently an unsolved problem. So you really only have two options:
1. Continue to back up with fossil fuels
2. Temporarily back up with nuclear
Check my comment history for a debate on nuclear safety.
Well, in principle, we know how to build nuclear. We're slow at it, it's expensive, but it's sort of off-the-shelf.
Long term energy storage, by batter or otherwise..? I don't believe anyone has done it. We're not talking about maybe smoothing out energy supply/demand over 24h, were talking producing energy in the summer for the winter.
I'm saying there's no storage solution yet. Even combining all storage types, you'd still run out of materials (battery) or locations (hydro) before finishing.
It's not speed vs speed. It's speed vs forecasted capacity.
At this point the climate crisis is bad enough that I won't even fight against nuclear as such. If you can build it safely I won't stand in your way. I'll be busy across the street, fighting against coal, oil & gas. Thing is, the time scale at which nuclear stations are constructed isn't at all the same as for renewables; starting the planning for new nuclear now isn't gonna put us on the right track to a livable future. Nuclear plants are huge; the big ones that would really be needed for a big shift like you describe would take a while to go online.
Which is okay I think; if anything, we'll need much more electricity in total anyhow as we electrify more processes. But we'll need more low-carbon energy much before that, now more than ever. So I'll only agree with this if it's not an either or but doing both.
Caveat: I don't trust big profit driven corporations, nor states, to run nuclear plants in an honestly safety-oriented way. I have yet to hear a proposal how the incentives could be set up to change that. If nuclear is relatively casualty-free so far, I feel that's mostly luck, and indeed there were a few close calls. Don't start arguing with me on this one please because it's not the core of my argument (here). :)