this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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It's not even the waste, that we still need to learn how to recycle. Or the apparent incapacity of any operator to reliably follow the theoretical safety guidelines...
If we put all our effort into a nuclear boom today, the plants will only arrive a decade or two after the planet has been cooked, it won't be enough to replace anything, and we will have to learn entire new ways to mine the fuel in a few decades before the stuff we can get easily is gone.
Meanwhile we are about half-way done with renewables, and the nuclear fans keep denying that...
I'm a fan of both, but fully accept that fission is now too late to be useful. We also have fusion right on the tipping point of viability. That could likely fill the use cases of fusion quite well, with far less issues.
FYI, nuclear produces 3 sorts of nuclear waste. High activity is nasty, but short lived. Put it in a pool for a few years and it decays away. Low grade is the stuff like lab waste and contaminated pipes. You don't really want it going in normal landfill, but it's not going to kill anyone with radiation (heavy metal toxicity is another matter). It's only the last type, medium activity that is problematic. It lasts a long time, while still putting out enough radiation to cause potential problems. Unfortunately, older "power" plants, were actually bomb factories. They were intended to make plutonium, and so produce a lot more of the medium activity waste than they could.
The anti-nuclear crowd still doesn’t have an answer for base load power when there is no wind or solar. What are you going to do, have massive back up batteries? For an entire electric grid? Of an entire country? And do that worldwide?
We can’t even mine lithium fast enough or make enough batteries for all the cars to switch to EV’s in the next decade.
Edit: as usual, the downvote bandwagon has nothing of value to add. I’m open to viable alternatives, but I haven’t heard any yet.
There's pumped hydro, geothermal energy, and biofuel, in the future we'll likely see some wave power as well. The point isn't to have one technology for the entire grid but to have a diverse and distributed energy system.
For storage there are also many more options than just lithium ion batteries. We have sodium ion if you just want to swap battery for battery, but then there are also for example iron-air batteries that are projected to be dirt cheap, redox flow batteries, pressurized air, cryogenic energy, sand batteries for storing heat, hydrogen electrolysis, etc.
Not only will this make this a power grid that is less dependent on supply chains that are impacted by geopolitical conflicts, but it will also make it more resilient as the weather continues becoming more extreme.
I’m not saying we need one technology for the entire grid. Of course you diversify. That is out of the question.
But the solutions you mentioned aren’t ready yet.
Pumped hydro isn’t feasible everywhere, nor is geothermal and is wildly expensive. Biofuel burning emits greenhouse gases. Sodium ion batteries are a new technology and we don’t know how well it scales and we don’t have the production capacity. And the others aren’t proven technologies, so they may not be around for decades.
No, the point is that the anti-nuclear crowd is trying to make it seem like there is no role for nuclear energy in the future alongside renewable energy. They haven’t thought about baseload power and they think putting giant battery parks everywhere will be fast and easy, as well as —somehow— great for the environment.
That's the whole point of diversifying, use the sources that are available in the places where they are available.
The point is that the greenhouse gases that they emit have already been captured from the atmosphere, which makes them carbon neutral.
It uses a lot of the same type of production as lithium ion, it is already being produced by some of the largest battery manufacturers on the planet, and being sold on the market, and we have years of research to give us a good idea of how it will evolve.
Neither will fission plants. Even if we decided to start building out today, there are years before we actually see construction start, not to mention commissioning and eventually power production. We're probably talking about the 2040s at that point.
Some people, sure. But the person above wasn't talking about completely removing all fission, just that we should have started building nuclear plants twenty years ago because it's slow and comes with a massive up-front cost, and at this point we have other alternatives that are cheaper and faster to install. Nuclear fission plants are also a very centralized source of energy, so if there are issues in the future as a result of climate change (similar to what they've been experiencing in France) then you lose a lot of grid capacity all at once while trying to resolve it.
I think nuclear is a reliable source of power, I've been an advocate for it, but I don't believe it's the right solution at this point in time.
I'm on board with the rest of your argument, but that's a very reductionist way to look at things. The concern with biofuel usage is, that there is inevitably going to be methane emissions, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. So the zero sum game doesn't really apply here.
On top of that, it's comparatively inefficient, among other issues.
I wouldn't bet on biomass to play a large role in a carbon neutral energy system.
Yes, but they are more niche solutions rather than widely available or feasible ones.
Only in theory, and only with some crop types. And as with all agriculture, it takes up a lot of space. If we simply used that space to plant trees we wouldn’t have to release those GHGs into the atmosphere at all. And then there is the labour intensive process of sowing, watering, harvesting, processing and transportation that emits GHGs of its own.
Yes, but small scale projects do not tell you how it scales to grids worldwide. Nor how it holds up after years, or what happens when these batteries reach the end of their lifecycle. And it may be decades until we can make it on the scale that is necessary for worldwide deployment.
We already know all of this stuff for NPPs due to decades of experience with them.
Possibly, although SMR’s may be built quicker. The point is it’s not the same for a technology that still needs to be developed. All these ideas still need to be developed and then be produced and implemented. So that’s more like 2050s-2060s.
Yeah but the person above didn’t realize that these are not competing technologies. The NPP provides base load power, e.g. at night when the solar panels produce none. And solar panels provide peak load power during the day. They meet different demands, but the NPP is more stable and can also be turned up or down during the day depending on the weather.
NPPs are way more reliable than solar, so the current shutdown is big news just because it happens so rarely. And when there are extreme droughts there will probably be lots of sun around for solar to fill the gap.
I'm assuming you're from the USA.
You already mentioned an electric grid for an entire country and that's a solution right in front of you. It is very very very unlikely that no sun will shine and no wind will blow in your entire country at the same time.
You don't really need base load power as much as nuclear proponents think you would. If you have a large enough, functioning grid, with well distributed renewable energy generation, these fluctuations can be compensated for.
Of course, batteries can help and make things easier. But you don't even need to mine lithium for these anymore. Sodium batteries are already being used and that is an abundant resource. They have lower energy denity than lithium-batteries, which makes them less suitable for electric cars, but that's not really a big issue for grid storage batteries. Also you don't need centralized massive battery plants, a decentralized system with smaller battery stations can work just as well, if not better. So, backup batteries for an entire counry aren't even as inconceivable as you may think.
And that's all technology that's already being used and doesn't need a decade of planning to get a single powerplant up and running.
First of all, you assumed wrong. But that doesn’t really matter. Sticking with your USA example, it’s actually very likely that there will be moments throughout the year when there is not enough sun and wind to power the entire country. What about quiet winter days or even nights? And maybe there is some wind in California. Is your plan to place enough wind turbines there to power the rest of the country?
The problem is with reliability. You need power at all times, and not 95% of the time.
As for sodium batteries: yes they may be feasible, but will it also be for an entire planet? Do you honestly think that it won’t also take decades to get the resources, build new factories and produce millions of batteries?
The point is, why wouldn’t you also use nuclear power? What makes it so bad that you want to ditch it? Even if it takes a decade or more to build. It’s a proven technology and extremely stable, much more so than solar or wind, which are not as reliable as you would make it seem.
I don't think that graphic shows what you're trying to say. Or is at least a very bad choice to support your argument. A lower capicity factor just means, that wind and solar are fluctuating energy sources. Nobody's denying that.
I don't even want to avoid nuclear like the plague or anything, I do get the appeal. But, as your graphic underlines, it is a rather very constant energy source, which means, that it doesn't pair very well with fluctuating sources like solar and wind.
Since your not from the US, I'm gonna forget about that example for the time being, and concede, that there might be smaller national grids, that would indeed suffer more extremly from a lack of wind/solar inputs. But nuclear still isn't a good fit then, because you'd actually need energy generation with a lower capacity factor, which can react to the fluctuating demand and generation in the grid.
Batteries are only one option here.
You use salt at all? That's Sodium-Chloride. The resources are abundant, easily available and are already being extracted for other purposes in large quantities.
So, yes, I think they will be feasible for the entire planet and it won't take decades to get the resources and build infrastructure to make them. The technology isn't all that different from other batteries, they can use existing infrastructure.
I don't have time to write more, right now, but I hope you can see some of the issues here.
Well yes. Obviously. And they are rarely able to supply at full power. So that means you are going to have to fill the gaps. To have a functioning grid, you need stability. You can’t say, well it works 95% of the time, as good as it gets folks!
The graph underlines that NPPs can reliably un at maximum power almost all of the time. Not that they have to. I don’t think I’m the one who doesn’t get what that means.
Excuse me what? The capacity factor is about reliability, not flexibility. Why on earth would you want something that’s less reliable. You know you can’t tune the wind or sun, right?
And nuclear is another. Have you thought about how you would provide power on those windless winter nights after an overcast day?
Yeah I know what sodium is. I don’t need a mansplaination, thanks.
But if you honestly think all it takes to make a sodium ion battery is slapping some salt inside a container we need to start at a whole another level…
No they can’t. We need all of those and more to make Li-ion batteries to make the transition to EVs.
Your entire premise is based on wishful thinking. Let’s not base our entire future on wishful thinking. Instead, let’s diversify, and yes, that includes nuclear to get us through the winter.
If you seriously intend to keep this discussion going, I suggest we tune down the ad hominem and change to a more productive tone. I'm tired of internet discussions working the way they do, but only the participants can change that.
I'd suggest lets focus on the topic of capacity factors first, since I'm under the impression, that that's the biggest source of confusion/misunderstanding here and one that needs to be cleared for the whole topic to make any sense.
While I couldn't track down a primary ressource for the graph you provided, I'm assuming it's based on data from the United States, that is also presented here (admittedly in a much more cumbersome way): https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/
You can find capacity factors here: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_6_07_b (And in the similar table focussing on fossil power)
While that might not be the exact source for the diagram you provided, the numbers come close enough, that I'd say it suffices as a base for discussion.
The PDF containing technical notes explains, how capacity factor is being calculated. See p. 21 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/pdf/AppendixC.pdf
Now I haven't had time to look into the data more, but my main criticism about using that data is, that all it does (and checking the source and methodology here just confimed my view here) is tell you about how things work in the status quo. Not necessarily a good indicator of the potentials of a grid with a different structure. Can we agree on that?
I'd like to leave it here for the time being. I felt like I have to adress the bit about needing energy sources with a lower capacity factor, to go along with renewables, that was very poor wording on my part. But I feel like I'd derail the discussion, so I'll explain myself later on.
Funny how it’s always completely fine when people themselves go for the ad hominem, but when someone repays them in kind, we really need to tone it down.
You implied that I was ignorant twice in your comment. Once where I supposedly didn’t understand the graph I provided and the other when you assumed I didn’t know the most basic high school chemistry and tried to mansplain that.
If you keep getting into discussions that go sour, maybe you can try to find the common denominator.
So no, it’s not about whether I intend to keep this discussion going, or factual for that matter. Stick to the facts and don’t assume the other person is a total moron and see where that gets you.
The confusion is entirely on your side. You don’t seem to understand what these numbers mean, even after my clarification. I don’t know why your wrote a paragraph to point out how the numbers are calculated. I knew this already. It’s really basic stuff.
Unless we have a major breakthrough, solar panels and wind turbines are not going to be much more reliable in the future. So no, let’s absolutely rely on the data we have and build on that instead of tossing what we know aside and making a prediction based on wishful thinking.
But if you stop assuming you’re talking to a moron I’m willing to do my part keep the discussion more factual. So let me start by repeating this question:
Nice example of denial. Thanks.
Seems more like you’re in denial about the fact that 100% renewables with storage isn’t feasible.
How so?
There are some good ones and diverse ideas for many locations. The reason they are not yet implemented is because they are not prioritised. Base load is not the concern. Adaptive load is what needs to be there to supplement the grid. Nuclear can not provide that.
Of course there are a lot of good ideas and I don’t think we should not explore them. But we need more than ideas. We need available solutions. And we need scalable solutions.
Base load is definitely a concern. We still need base load power for when there is no sun, i.e. every night and when there is little to no wind. And especially when there is neither of those (no wind at night).
NPP’s can provide that base load power. During winter, but also during the night. On top of that, it is already adaptable:
This is simply not true.
Source
So, we can bet it all on unproven technologies that we don’t know the scalability of, or we can use a technology that has proven itself over decades, works on a large scale and is adaptable for baseload power and adaptable for when renewables aren’t available.