France auditors recently put out a report in which they criticized the high cost of their nuclear program and requested a moratorium for new projects in other countries.

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Where do renewables not work? I'd say they work at even more places, because you don't need such a developed infrastructure to set it up. Everyone can wire up a small solar farm after a few hours of YouTube, i wouldn't trust myself with reactor maintenance.

Nuclear also needs storage for peaks. You don't want to have to build enough nuclear for peak production which then gets shut down all the time, driving up your LCOE. You want your expensive plant to run all the time. Also you need storage if you have an unplanned maintenance, because then you lose a relevant percentage of production with little to no warning.

And storage is getting cheaper and better every year. The bigger issue would be a grid that can shovel power from one end of a continent to the other in case of adverse weather.

We need less space for solar to power the world than we use for golf courses right now, so I'd say landuse is a non issue. Because you can use roofs and such even less.

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But the technology requires this amount of bureaucracy, else you get big problems. I trust physics, but i don't trust humans. Especially if they can get money by skimping on security. The risks with renawables (except dams) are way smaller.

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Where do renewables not work?

the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow consistently everywhere.

Everyone can wire up a small solar farm after a few hours of YouTube, i wouldn’t trust myself with reactor maintenance.

of course, but even if we put solar on every rooftop in the world that won't solve our energy demands.

You don’t want to have to build enough nuclear for peak production

I never said you should. from the beginning I said we need solar for the baseline which will help reduce the need for grid storage. yes, some grid storage will be needed.

And storage is getting cheaper and better every year.

so would nuclear if we actually did it and improved regulatory inefficiencies.

We need less space for solar to power the world than we use for golf courses right now, so I’d say landuse is a non issue. Because you can use roofs and such even less.

land use isn't an issue in rural places, but it absolutely is in more densely populated places near cities and datacenter hubs. The world is not homogenous.

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Don't forget hydro, look at Norway, it's pretty far away from the equator but has almost 100% renewables. Island as well. There are suboptimal locations, but in the end there is no country which can't use renewables for all electricity needs.

Supplying the current global electricity consumption with solar PV would imply covering 0.3% of the land area of the world (source)

All rooftops should be enough but parking lots and agrarsolar would be also solutions. So even if we only use solar (which we don't ) it should be possible.

Renewables create a base load, the problem are demand peaks following overcast days. And there npps don't help.

so would nuclear if we actually did it and improved regulatory inefficiencies

Maybe, but not fast enough. We need the power immediately and battery are already in the steep part of their growth phase. We can't spend several decades learning how to do it right. Then we could also just wait for fusion.

land use isn't an issue in rural places, but it absolutely is in more densely populated places near cities and datacenter hubs. The world is not homogenous.

Then we use power lines like we do already. Most power plants right now are also not in cities, so I don't understand the argument. Would you also want to build the npps in/near cities?

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Don’t forget hydro, look at Norway, it’s pretty far away from the equator but has almost 100% renewables. Island as well. There are suboptimal locations, but in the end there is no country which can’t use renewables for all electricity needs.

everywhere that can use hydro already has. you can't just create new rivers to dam up, so that isn't an option to address our growing electricity needs.

All rooftops should be enough but parking lots and agrarsolar would be also solutions. So even if we only use solar (which we don’t ) it should be possible.

yes I was mistaken about that, point acknowledged.

Renewables create a base load, the problem are demand peaks following overcast days. And there npps don’t help.

this is not uncontested, plenty of people disagree.

Maybe, but not fast enough. We need the power immediately and battery are already in the steep part of their growth phase.

we have been saying this for decades and I guarantee you we will still be saying in in another decade. Also, renewables aren't fast to connect to the grid either. The more we spin up the bigger the backlog will be connecting new installations to the grid.

We can’t spend several decades learning how to do it right. Then we could also just wait for fusion.

luckily we have a whole planet of people with various interests and expertise. Like it or not, there are going to be people working on nuclear, you can't just wave a wand and make them all work on solar or wind. it would be extremely short sighted to outright eliminate one potential clean source of energy

Then we use power lines like we do already. Most power plants right now are also not in cities, so I don’t understand the argument. Would you also want to build the npps in/near cities?

longer power lines means more efficiency losses, and the more you plan to roll out renewables to 100% the more inefficiencies there will be. as previously stated, connecting large brand new renewable installations to the grid is expensive and also takes a long time.

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But you always have a combination of several renewable sources which can power these countries.

this is not uncontested, plenty of people disagree

Yeah, i know. Time will tell.

we have been saying this for decades and I guarantee you we will still be saying in in another decade. Also, renewables aren't fast to connect to the grid either. The more we spin up the bigger the backlog will be connecting new installations to the grid.

Sorry but that is just not true. The growth of solar has almost been logarithmic and the installed capacity was almost non-existent two decades ago. That just doesn't compare to the snails pace of nuclear.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

Also, it's not about people, but money. Every euro spent on some tech bro nuclear startup could be used to install real capacity instead.

longer power lines means more efficiency losses, and the more you plan to roll out renewables to 100% the more inefficiencies there will be. as previously stated, connecting large brand new renewable installations to the grid is expensive and also takes a long time.

Yeah, theoretically true, but what distances are we talking about? To get electricity from the suburbs in the city center should be trivial. It gets more difficult if we have to cross countries, but high voltage DC solves that issue pretty well. We could power europe from solar installed in the Sahara ^^

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No they are not. There is toxic waste, there are environmental risks, everything basically.

Especially hydroelectric energy is a very small version of the Dyson sphere by its impact on the ecosystems involved. Renewable, but sure as hell not green.

While nuclear energy uses, ahem, nuclear fuel, which is not very renewable, and nuclear waste needs some time to calm down, but it's very green.

Wind energy impacts birds.

Tide energy, well, impacts everything that functions well when it's not collected.

Anyway, one can just integrate stats of losses from nuclear energy and from the rest and see that they are not.

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Yeah, not gonna write a big reply to this.

If your that strict, nothing is green. Its about minimizing the impact.
And you forgot to mention the mining of uranium.

Wind energy impacts birds.

Please compare the impact to housecats, cars and agriculture.

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Hydroelectric energy is worse than burning coal. It's not being strict, it's being adequate.

Housecats are a catastrophe, cars - not so much, agriculture - modern agriculture can have little impact for very good output.

We started with nuclear energy which is greener than solar panels and wind turbines. It still is.

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Hydroelectric energy is worse than burning coal. It's not being strict, it's being adequate

[Citation required]

Housecats are a catastrophe, cars - not so much, agriculture - modern agriculture can have little impact for very good output.

All are way bigger than windturbines. And the biggest is habit loss, which is mainly driven by agriculture.

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If citations are required for my truisms, then citations are also required for your bullshit.

So - you start first, cause I'm lazy.

And the biggest is habit loss, which is mainly driven by agriculture.

Modern intensive agriculture is better for this particular kind of damage than hydroelectric energy, wind turbines and solar panel farms.

Not using facts, but using logic:

Space where wind turbines work becomes dangerous (as in uninhabitable) for a lot of life, not just birds being killed or their migrations affected by disorientation, but also seeds carried by wind. Same with solar panels - plants need sunlight, animals need plants, soil needs plants. Same with hydroelectric energy - by changing whole watersheds it incurs such enormous damage to existing ecosystems that a Chernobyl or two every decade is better, and humans don't bother much about creating and maintaining new ones.

While with modern agriculture one may make a lot of things closed from the surrounding environment, occupying only space.

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Yeah, you're lazy and wrong,

https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/6784/1/RR-03-05.pdf, Fig 8

Not using facts,

True

but using logic:

You mean pulling stuff out of your ass?

not just birds being killed or their migrations affected by disorientation,

Not true

but also seeds carried by wind

Wtf?

that a Chernobyl or two every decade is better

Wtf???

Start bringing some sources

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France auditors recently put out a report in which they criticized the high cost of their nuclear program and requested a moratorium for new projects in other countries.