>Everything has an impact on the ecosystem, is your point that nuclear has less of an impact than solar?
Yes. That was my point. Much less.
The other argument I would make is I'm not seeing any evidence that solar actually solves any problem for us. It can't replace fossil fuels, and in fact needs fossil fuel back-up because there is no battery technology (today or upcoming) that can store enough energy to, say, power a city overnight. The global population continues to grow and with it energy needs. Worse, energy/capita is also growing. This means that as bad as solar is today on the environment, it is only going to get worse.
Look, it’s fine if you’re pro nuclear but why not be pro nuclear on its own merits? Your argument would be so much stronger without the parts disregarding wind and solar, as if energy sources are mutually exclusive. I urge you to do some more research on modern renewable technologies, specifically with regard to baseload and not see them as just an enemy of nuclear energy.
>I urge you to do some more research on modern renewable technologies
I see no evidence that solar and wind can actually replace fossil fuels. I think they are great in niche areas, but I see no evidence that they are even a partial solution to climate change. The nature of solar energy and wind energy is such that it is diffuse, and therefore needs massive number of collectors, and that requirement is directly proportional to population size, and per capita energy use (both of which are going up). This also means that you need to over-provision because solar and wind output varies daily, seasonally and even inter-annually (there are years when wind output is high, and years when it is low). And there is no battery technology now, or upcoming, that is capable of even storing that energy to even bridge daily variability at city-scale (for even a moderately-sized city).
Occasionally you'll see an article about some small country X getting 100% of their energy from renewables. In every case, that 'renewable' is hydro or geothermal (and hydro/geothermal is great and better than nuclear ... but only if you have the geography for it). It is never solar or wind. Every week for the last decade we have an article about how cheap (and getting cheaper) solar and wind is, and yet no country or even region is powered solely through these renewable. Germany is investing heavily in wind, while at the same time building pipelines to ship Russian gas for decades - WHY?!?!
Maybe renewable just can't do it and we should be honest about that. I think solar and wind are a distraction and they've become a religion.
By the way, here's a live view of the energy mix of my home province of Ontario (pop ~15 million)[1]. Because of nuclear and hydro we're pretty much at 85%-97% non-carbon power any given day ... and yet there is an irrational push for solar and wind (which also requires investment in natural gas) - what does solar and wind do for us? As a bonus, Ontario is one of the few places that you can make a credible argument against nuclear because we could sign long-term contract to ship hydro from Quebec ... but that's not the argument being made. The argument being made is that we should decommission nuclear in favour of ... can you guess? ... wind and solar - guaranteeing that we would need to build up natural gas for baseload. Insanity.
>specifically with regard to baseload
They need fossil fuel baseload. That's a fact. There is some talk about bio-fuels (i.e. burning wood!) but that's a disaster for the environment. We'd literally be clearing land to grow things that we then burn. And did you ever imagine that the energy technology of the future would be burning wood (or corn, or garbage)? And outside of biofuels, there is nothing else. In some cases, if you have the geography for it maybe you can build a pumped-storage reservoir, but that's the best you can do.
Yes. That was my point. Much less.
The other argument I would make is I'm not seeing any evidence that solar actually solves any problem for us. It can't replace fossil fuels, and in fact needs fossil fuel back-up because there is no battery technology (today or upcoming) that can store enough energy to, say, power a city overnight. The global population continues to grow and with it energy needs. Worse, energy/capita is also growing. This means that as bad as solar is today on the environment, it is only going to get worse.