Nuclear power is cost prohibitive. Additionally, it's hard to predict and account for that one-in-a-million catastrophe that creates a nuclear wasteland. The sample size is too small.
Really, because it’s widely employed around the world. If you have some evidence that it’s “cost prohibitive” though I’d love to see it. Evidence mind you, not flat declarations devoid of substance.
Additionally, it's hard to predict and account for that one-in-a-million catastrophe that creates a nuclear wasteland. The sample size is too small.
Many decades and thousands of reactors on land and naval applications with only a few notable disasters beg to differ. I’m also curious where this “wasteland” comment is coming from. The worst nuclear disaster, one singular in its extremity, has led to something far from a wasteland, although quite a few people had to be relocated.
Either way, trading in the known mass casualtiesin the millions per annum, and environmental catastrophe of burning hydrocarbons, for scaremongering “what if’s” so profoundly out of touch with reality as yours is the falsest of dilemmas. The total death toll from everything nuclear, including weapons can’t match a year of deaths and illness from burning coal. Never mind mining coal, drilling for oil and transporting it and the associated sociopolitical disaster of the Middle East, the environmental harm of fracking, and the sheer stupidity of not addressing climate change now.
A weaker statement than a flat out "nuclear power is cost prohibitive": current-gen nuclear power seems to be having serious cost problems, even in countries that previously successfully built out nuclear, and even where there is a relatively favorable political environment. Whether this is due to fundamental reasons or not is of course another question.
One example is the new-generation Électricité de France EPR design, where the first unit scheduled to be completed, at Flamanville, is way late and over budget. France has almost 100% nuclear power and has both a good safety and cost record historically, so the seeming lack of success of this project has dismayed many people: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-flamanville/edfs-flam...
It's not quite as positive a political environment overall, but Westinghouse also had strong local and state-level support for its new unit in Georgia (the U.S. state), but ended up going bankrupt after cost overruns: https://www.ajc.com/business/power-seeks-best-path-forward-p...
Obviously cost overruns at two plants is a very small sample size, so it could be due to non-fundamental features, like severe mismanagement. But given that there aren't that many large-scale projects going on, the two biggest Western ones both running into major trouble has really hurt prospects for more funding/support. If even one of these had been a clear success, the outlook would be much better.
>The worst nuclear disaster, one singular in its extremity, has led to something far from a wasteland
I believe the phrase you are looking is "wildlife sanctuary". By far the biggest effect that nuclear disasters have on the environment is their function as a human repellent.
For the cost to be prohibitive, it only really needs to be dearer than an alternative that's at least as good. That alternative is now wind: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41220948.
Wind is not a like-for-like replacement for nuclear. The amount of land wind would need to replace just one nuclear reactor is many orders of magnitude greater.
Renewables must be supported by a reliable base-load supply, which effectively means you need to choose between either nuclear or fossil fuels.
1. The amount of land or sea, which latter makes for a dearer installation but is much easier to find in densely populated countries like the UK.
2. My understanding is that, sure, you can't have a grid that runs purely on wind, but you can go a lot higher than we currently do without much trouble. The issue with massive new nuclear is that outages can take a sizeable percentage of your generation off-grid unexpectedly at a moment's notice (Hinkley will I believe represent 7% of UK grid capacity), which in a sense is a worse intermittency problem than you get with renewables (which tend to ramp up and down more smoothly and broadly in line with weather forecasts). Also, battery storage can help.
This won't be the case with modern reactor designs. Previous designs were based on an approach that is fundamentally unstable and thus requires a huge investment in safety critical systems to keep things in line.
Newer designs are fundamentally stable and fail in an inherently safe manner. Much, much less surrounding infrastructure and a greatly reduced need for system level fixes to problems since the catastrophic issues have been designed out.
It will take some time to turn the ship, but it is our best chance for producing 24 hour scalable power that is also carbon safe. Just search "modern nuclear reactor design" and start honestly reading the literature with an open mind.
Plenty of great information out there for anyone interested in letting go of their preconceived ideas and exploring the amazing work that is happening now.
The new designs are not going to be available for many years. They have to be proved in operation, particularly if they involve new chemistry like MSRs.
By the time they're proven, renewables will have expanded to global dominance and likely run down their experience curves to cost points that even Gen IV nuclear will find very hard to beat.
New nuclear designs are a hedge against renewables suddenly stopping getting cheaper. An insurance policy, but hopefully one that won't be needed.
