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With unlimited resources, yes it would make sense to keep building nuclear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
But wind and solar have outpaced nuclear. You can get way more power way quicker with wind and solar than you can nuclear.
And what we need right now is maximum speed. We don't have time. This transition should be happening overnight, but we're dragging our feet.
Part of the cost of nuclear is all the lawsuits. Someone else talked about China doing a lot with nuclear and part of that is that they don't have to deal with the lawsuits. So so so many lawsuits.
I do love this chart though. It's really representative of why we need to invest in new technology even when it seems stupid expensive at first.
The 2 points I do want to bring up are, one, as someone else mentioned, battery storage. It's sort of the unsolved puzzle of renewables at this point. I'm certain we will figure it out and be able to produce something at scale and renewables at that point will be the only even sort of ethical option (assuming the batteries aren't made of minerals mined exclusively by slave labor or something, then I guess the debate will still rage on).
And second, SMRs are still not actually a thing yet. The cost of nuclear could drop (probably will drop drastically) when mini nuclear power plants are being produced rapidly and shipped around to various locations. Kinda like how building a modular home is much cheaper than a fully custom one with a bespoke design. Assuming they find a way to make all that happen before widespread large load batteries, I wouldn't consider it as clear cut.
In reality it makes sense to keep building nuclear, the resources required to build nuclear are mostly different than building solar and wind, so you can definitely do both to increase carbon free energy rapidly. I agree we need to rapidly scale solar and wind, but we also need to be advancing nuclear power technology.
Also solar and wind need batteries because of their variable generation, again which are different materials/knowledge than nuclear mostly.
They may take different materials, but until we escape capitalism the only thing that will matter is the literal monetary cost.
In a perfect world, we would be doing both side by side because of the different materials needed. But in the current world the opportunity cost exists due to monetary limits.
Like you keep saying "we". China is currently doing what you mention "in a perfect world". Why can't we do the same? Why is it that Illinois stopped at around exactly 50%? They ACTIVELY constructing these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
We as in humanity. The majority of nations are capitalist nations, and all nations use currency, which means opportunity cost.
Every state and power utility that is considering what to allocate their money on is going to choose the bare minimum it takes to keep the lights on. That means going the cheapest, not doing the most.
China may have a lower opportunity cost due to the tighter control over the economy, but they're still paying it. China is not in the perfect world situation either. They're just sacrificing the opportunity cost.
I'm confused, do the Chinese not count as a part of humanity? The entire world is losing to China when it comes to nuclear power increases.
Yes, China counts as humanity.
What that graph does not show is the reduced production of solar and wind. That means that overall there is less power being generated by green sources. So they are overall producing more greenhouse gasses than if they had just gone full solar and wind.
It seems you've missed the point.