Better some nuclear waste than more greenhouse gases.
Having an advanced civilization means we're going to exploit the environment and generate waste products. It doesn't mean we can't exploit the environment sustainably or let our waste products harm the environment, but it does mean that a choice has to be made. We have almost 8 billion humans to house, clothe, and feed. Windmills aren't going to cut it. Unless you want us to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
I think this argument has been here for millennia. Move forward or back to the roots... In this case I look forward, but thanks to some really good PR (and possibly well paid) it seems natural-gas backed renewables are winning at the moment.
Until there is enough renewable generation capacity to satisfy load and also charge storage, building more renewables is the right place for capital expenditure. After there is enough capacity will be time to build out storage. (Otherwise you would need to burn NG to charge the storage.)
Fortunately, storage cost is falling even faster than wind or solar ever did, so by the time we need much, it will be very, very cheap.
At present the main value in storage is load smoothing, where you don't need much.
Seems like a fair argument. What are the other options? Every counterargument I come across is either trying to solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology or pays no regard to preserving or improving current quality of life.
Safe, affordable and scaleable nuclear power is much more "tomorrow's technology" than renewable energy. The waste storage problem has not been solved. SMRs have issues and are still under development. Building plants usually takes decades. Specialized labor is in short supply. Nobody wants a reactor in their neighborhood. Putting reactors were governments could evaporate or are already riddled with corruption is ... unwise.
Renewable energy is actually more on track to solve the carbon emissions problem than nuclear energy.
> Renewable energy is actually more on track to solve the carbon emissions problem than nuclear energy.
"On track to solve" sounds like a forward looking statement, which goes back to my issue of people insisting on solving today's problem with tomorrow's technology. You simply can't put shovel in the ground today and build out a green solution to power manhattan, but you can start constructing a nuclear reactor with a proven design.
You can, in fact, put shovel to ground, and shovel is to ground.
But it takes time to build out a wholesale replacement for existing global infrastructure. Fortunately, it takes much, much less time and expense than replacing with nukes, and much, much less expense than continuing to operate existing infrastructure.
We could have started this decades ago, and not be facing imminent catastrophe. Jimmy Carter (a former nuclear engineer) tried to get us on that road.
The overwhelmingly biggest impediment to wholesale replacement for radically cheaper energy is social and structural inertia, chiefly apathy in the ruling class. Ignorance is the largest contributor.
Having an advanced civilization means we're going to exploit the environment and generate waste products. It doesn't mean we can't exploit the environment sustainably or let our waste products harm the environment, but it does mean that a choice has to be made. We have almost 8 billion humans to house, clothe, and feed. Windmills aren't going to cut it. Unless you want us to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.