alt Hacker News> And since renewable + batteries is now cheaper than nuclear, we should spend our money and time wisely.
Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy. Nuclear will output power come rain or shine, and like I said, it's not like China isn't investing in advanced fission. They're throwing money at everything to see what sticks. They're working on SMRs, molten salt, thorium, and more.
Replies
> Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, night is a thing, it might not be windy
Also, we can't survive an asteroid crash/extinction event with solar.
Nuclear is transcedental. If we had practically unlimited fusion power, we could build underground, grow plants in aquaponics and aeroponics and ride it out in underground cities and farms.
There's words like "cloudy", and then there's proper simulation studies which demonstrate that these concerns are unfounded.
> Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy.
That's two baskets right there.
> it becomes night, it might not be windy.
That's where long distance interconnects come into play.
Nuclear isn't getting built at any significant scale in the US after Vogtle. We might get a couple of plants opened up (like 3MI) but large scale new buildouts aren't happening until SMRs are available at scale. Anything else is an Internet fantasy.
> Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, it becomes night, it might not be windy
...which is why China has 40 000 km of UHV transmission lines forming a vast network to move the energy from where it is abundant to where it is needed. They have 8 new UHV projects that started in 2024 or 2025 that will add another 10 000 km.
It's two orders of magnitude difference between renewables and nuclear though. China commissioned about 3GW of nuclear and almost 300GW of solar last year.