China has plugged in its first domestically-built nuclear reactor with hopes to become more energy-independent and to export its design across the globe.
The primary appeal of fossil fuels is that you get to decide when you use them. Where as Solar/Wind tend to be incidental to the moment without substantive storage capacity.
But the "peak" periods of energy use tend to correspond with "peak" periods of renewable energy production. And the proliferation of renewables is still relatively small, such that we aren't even at the baseline energy demand for the average day. That makes renewables both attractive and immediately profitable to produce, so long as we're ok with relying on coal/nat. gas in a supplementary role.
Nuclear provides a benefit similar to FFs, in so far as you can vary the amount of fuel you input and electricity you generate. But then there are all the problems listed above.
If you love your free-market model for energy, nuclear doesn't work. It only works when you're willing to do the kind of subsidization and central planning that China does but the US despises.
The primary appeal of fossil fuels is that you get to decide when you use them. Where as Solar/Wind tend to be incidental to the moment without substantive storage capacity.
But the "peak" periods of energy use tend to correspond with "peak" periods of renewable energy production. And the proliferation of renewables is still relatively small, such that we aren't even at the baseline energy demand for the average day. That makes renewables both attractive and immediately profitable to produce, so long as we're ok with relying on coal/nat. gas in a supplementary role.
Nuclear provides a benefit similar to FFs, in so far as you can vary the amount of fuel you input and electricity you generate. But then there are all the problems listed above.
If you love your free-market model for energy, nuclear doesn't work. It only works when you're willing to do the kind of subsidization and central planning that China does but the US despises.
And when you do a PR campaign to get rid of the stigma behind it.
You don't need a PR campaign for a utility.
People are very happy to have electricity and very upset when it goes out. After that, most people don't think about where it comes from
You do in a lot of ways. Anti-Nuclear is very popular in the environmental movement.
Anti-coal is popular, but it wasn't environmentalism that crippled the coal industry.