> We need to come up with solutions that aren't just possible, but cheap
Renewable energy sources are already cheaper than traditional nuclear energy, in many parts of the world already cheaper than fossil sources, and rapidly getting even cheaper:
And at the same time, Westinghouse had to file for chaper 11 bankruptcy because ... well, nuclear power does not seem to be so economical at all.
As an interesting side note, both nuclear power as well as renewable energy sources have the cost structure that almost all investments are up-front, while the relative amount of running costs is very small. Because in a market system, the marginal cost of production per unit determines the market price, and the market price is therefore close to zero, both technologies have the problem that they actually need subsidies and incentives to be created. In other words, while renewable power sources definitively need incentives, nuclear power also can't exist without huge subsidies.
> Renewable energy sources are already cheaper than traditional nuclear energy
Again: only when looking at the cost of generation alone. It's more expensive if you factor in the storage and/or long-distance transmission necessary for high utilization (even the study I'm responding to says so, though by a smaller amount than I've seen elsewhere -- ~13%).
> well, nuclear power does not seem to be so economical at all.
Nuclear power isn't economical under the current regulatory environment and set of political realities. There's no fundamental reason that that need be the case. More people die from wind and solar per year than nuclear (mostly installers and technicians falling off of things), and obviously both are dwarfed by orders of magnitude by coal once externalities are factored in. If we were as risk-averse with those sources as we are with nuclear, they would be expensive too. Coupled with the slowness of construction eliminating economies of scale or effective market competition, and you don't have a great situation.
(but wind energy was not the primary cause, the main cause was bad planning)
What happens at large scale is that the fluctuations induced by variable wind speeds smooth out over larger regions. And having a large, interconnected grid is usually much cheaper than battery storage.
What would also help is diversification. In Scotland, there was a fascinating project to generate electricity from wave power, the Pelamis wave power converter. It had working 500 kW installation but was scrapped then.
> If we were as risk-averse with those sources as we are with nuclear, they would be expensive too.
A wind power plant blowing up will not cause half of Europe to be contaminated with huge costs to agriculture, like it happened in 1986. You must also not forgot the extreme health costs of uranium mining.
Renewable energy sources are already cheaper than traditional nuclear energy, in many parts of the world already cheaper than fossil sources, and rapidly getting even cheaper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
And at the same time, Westinghouse had to file for chaper 11 bankruptcy because ... well, nuclear power does not seem to be so economical at all.
As an interesting side note, both nuclear power as well as renewable energy sources have the cost structure that almost all investments are up-front, while the relative amount of running costs is very small. Because in a market system, the marginal cost of production per unit determines the market price, and the market price is therefore close to zero, both technologies have the problem that they actually need subsidies and incentives to be created. In other words, while renewable power sources definitively need incentives, nuclear power also can't exist without huge subsidies.