ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
Devils advocate, why built more nuclear plants when you could build more renewables? If it’s a scaling issue, in that you need a ton more infrastructure for renewables, and need to supplement with nuclear, wouldn’t that then always be the case in the future? I hear nuclear is needed to bridge the gap often, but it always sounds like it’s temporary, which I don’t understand - seems like nuclear would be needed forever if renewables aren’t able to scale well?
Take solar as an example, the current technology isn’t developed enough to generate the amount of Kilowatt hours necessary to provide ample power to users. You can’t build to scale yet. Buffering with nuclear power, despite the long-term fuel waste disposal, is an effective way to help eliminate greenhouse gases.
There’s a need for high capacity power generation, and at this point the renewable technologies are not developed enough to ween ourselves entirely off coal and natural gas. Then you have to take into account the growing EV demand, which has barely begun to generate user demand.
Nuclear is like watering a garden with a hose as opposed to renewables that has a squirt gun. The hose can shoot a lot more, a lot harder, for a lot longer. The squirt gun can do a good bit during the day but has to go be filled up at night from the nearby lake. It also doesn’t give nearly as much water nor does it do it as hard. The only benefit to renewables is the ‘bottomless’ aspect where no matter how much of it we use, there’s always more.
And not to go fully into this, renewables like solar panels require rare earth materials that we can run out of so hedging our bets on that is dubious at best. Fission, while fear mongered by media into the ground is amazing in modern times and Fusion is on the horizon to try and win the hearts of those still, somehow, unconvinced.