What about the financial disasters? Especially in all attempts within the last 30 years?
Nuclear has long had a reputation as a tech that could bankrupt a utility, which is why utilities stopped building it in the 1980s.
In the mid-2000s, in an attempt to revitalize the industry, we had an attempt to build nuclear in highly supportive communities with high levels of support from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee.
This attempt ended in yet more financial disaster. South Carolina residents pay an average of $20/month on their electricity bill for a failed project that will never produce energy (Vogtle). In order to convince the utility to take on the massive financial risk of a nuclear construction project, the nuclear industry pushed through a special bill in the state legislature that lets the utility charge ratepayers whether or not a nuclear construction project completes.
The UK started attempts at building nuclear at the same time, and though it started construction at Hinckley C, a project far behind schedule and far over budget, it has not even been able to find somebody to build at Wylfa. Hitachi pulled out.
Similarly, France, who is often an example of "good nuclear," is abandoning new nuclear because their attempts at building again have all ended in financial disaster and blown schedules.
Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima are not the nuclear failures that scare those who would build it. It's the financial risk that scares away investors, and it should scare us all. Dumping such high capital costs in a 50-year investment, at a time when alternatives are dropping in cost exponentially, is just foolish. It's like buying 50 years of lock-in to 386 Intel processors in 1990. Just foolish.
I would argue that buying anything where the cost is dropping exponentially is foolish as well. This would mean that it makes a lot more sense to invest in the economy and wait until renewable technology stops becoming cheaper/more reliable before buying.
But what do we do in the meanwhile? What do we do if storage technology isn't able to match energy demand when the sun isn't out and the wind isn't blowing? What do we do in areas that don't get as much renewable energy? Many questions. Probably more than one sensible answer.
Renewables might not be a magic bullet. We need a plan B. Nuclear as a long term base load power source? Not as crazy as it sounds.
As equipment ages out, we need to replace it with something. Just as we need to buy computers right now for our computation needs, even if it would be cheaper to wait until 2050 to compute things, that doesn't help us with decisions now.
The lifecycle of wind and solar is typically planned to be around 25 years. Most installs are lasting longer than expected. With wind, some farms are reporting with bigger turbines even before lifetimes are over as it is the economically advantageous choice for getting more energy out of a prime location for wind. This isn't common with solar because new panels are cheaper, but so now generate much more power from the same land usage unlike wind.
Renewables are a proven option, solar has truly become a "magic bullet," in that it is the cheapest energy source in history. But it will only be one tool among many that we will use.
I would like for nuclear to be a tool, but the current generation of tech is not constructable, and the lead times are too long for it to have an impact in the foreseeable future.
Nuclear has long had a reputation as a tech that could bankrupt a utility, which is why utilities stopped building it in the 1980s.
In the mid-2000s, in an attempt to revitalize the industry, we had an attempt to build nuclear in highly supportive communities with high levels of support from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee.
This attempt ended in yet more financial disaster. South Carolina residents pay an average of $20/month on their electricity bill for a failed project that will never produce energy (Vogtle). In order to convince the utility to take on the massive financial risk of a nuclear construction project, the nuclear industry pushed through a special bill in the state legislature that lets the utility charge ratepayers whether or not a nuclear construction project completes.
The UK started attempts at building nuclear at the same time, and though it started construction at Hinckley C, a project far behind schedule and far over budget, it has not even been able to find somebody to build at Wylfa. Hitachi pulled out.
Similarly, France, who is often an example of "good nuclear," is abandoning new nuclear because their attempts at building again have all ended in financial disaster and blown schedules.
Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima are not the nuclear failures that scare those who would build it. It's the financial risk that scares away investors, and it should scare us all. Dumping such high capital costs in a 50-year investment, at a time when alternatives are dropping in cost exponentially, is just foolish. It's like buying 50 years of lock-in to 386 Intel processors in 1990. Just foolish.