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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Most renewable energy projects are not larger than that private entities can invest and build them, as they are assumed to be profitable. Nuclear requires large, governmental investments. Both can be funded if we push the private sector by squeezing out fossil fuels with regulation and forcing them to invest in renewables.
The problem with starting with fusion in 20 years is twofold:
1: It assumes we will have viable, large scale fusion reactors developed within 20 years. Thats a big if.
2: If we start in 20 years, we won't have them until 30-40 years from now.
Thats why we have to start planning now for exactly the case you are talking about: A situation 20 years from now when we have transitioned mostly to renewables, but still need more energy. That is a very likely future, which is why we need to build nuclear now, so that we have it in 20 years, when we will need it.
If the large governmental investments go into renewables and storage we have more energy faster.
Also nuclear doesn't play nice with a energy network with a large fluctuating renewable part. As the running cost of a nuclear plant is minimal compared to the investment there is a huge incentive to let a nuclear plant run at max output all the time, thereby blocking the grid for renewables.
I'm not actually sure this is true in the long run. Yes, we will have more energy in 10 years, but will we have more in 30, 40, 50 years? When you look at the capacity of reactors built in e.g. France in (I think) the 70's-80's, it's clear that once you have reactor designs up and running, building a lot of capacity both cheaper and quicker. The first reactors are both most expensive, and take the longest to build.
And that's the exact point I'm trying to make: Not that we should only build nuclear, but that if we want to minimise the risk of future energy shortages, we should spread our eggs among as many baskets as possible. We can't just plan for 10-15 years ahead, we have to plan for 40-50 years ahead. On that time-scale, it is hard or impossible to say whether we will need nuclear. Therefore, it would be foolish to not invest in building and maintaining the institutional knowledge that comes with building reactors.
Even 20 years from now it is hard to say what our needs will be. Building reactors now ensures that we have some massive energy sources coming online in 20 years, if we in 15 years see that we have enough, we can scale down on other sources, but I think that is highly unlikely: We will always find a way to use excess energy for something useful.
But its the same with renewables and storage, they will improve as well and most likely keep their cost advantage.
And you seem to ignore Opportunity costs again. If we build to much nuclear plants and don't need the energy later we could have invested the money better in other areas, like education. Again, money is a finite resource.
And another reason why I prefer renewables to nuclear is decentralisation. With renewables everyone can partake in energy generation, while nuclear is only for big corporations or governments. I'd rather have a robust decentralised grid where almost everyone is consuming and producing local most of the time than a grid relying on a few huge producers, which are a huge target for sabotage or vulnerable to natural catastrophes.
I see your points, and largely agree with them. I don't think we're going to convince each other here, and thats because we put very different weight on the question
"What if we end up needing it, but haven't built it?"
To me, that is the deciding question, which makes me argue that we should invest in it, while for you it seems the answer is that we should invest in such a way that we minimise the probability of needing it in the first place, which I think is a fair answer.
Thats very aptly put. I would also like to not only work the supply side and make demand more flexible to better work with renewables. And maybe get rid of personal cars and get people to ride more bikes and so on... And if we manage to stall/reverse global warming in the next 20 years we hopefully have fusion for all of the really big energy needs.
But most importantly, we need to do everything to get rid of fossil fuels as fast as possible. And that's where I think we agree completely.
Definitely! We have to do pretty much everything we can to prevent the world from burning and drowning simultaneously.
On that note - I should probably get back to work ;)