If we had a few hundred permits for nuclear reactors ready to go right now, then it would take a minimum of 5 years to have any of them producing electricity. More likely closer to 10 years.
Solar+wind+storage is going to spend the next 5-10 years running the table. Nuclear is not capable of being spun up that quickly. Greenpeace won. They delayed nuclear long enough that it no longer matters. No longer has anything to do with NIMBYs or safety worries or anything like that. The people with money to invest are no longer interested in a tech with a long history of cost and schedule overruns when a wind farm can start returning dividends in six months.
One thing I think we should do is subsidize reactors for reusing waste. The economics of that are less important than getting rid of existing waste, and it’s better than tossing it down a mineshaft for a hundred thousand years.
If we had a few hundred permits for nuclear reactors ready to go right now, then it would take a minimum of 5 years to have any of them producing electricity. More likely closer to 10 years.
Solar+wind+storage is going to spend the next 5-10 years running the table. Nuclear is not capable of being spun up that quickly. Greenpeace won. They delayed nuclear long enough that it no longer matters. No longer has anything to do with NIMBYs or safety worries or anything like that. The people with money to invest are no longer interested in a tech with a long history of cost and schedule overruns when a wind farm can start returning dividends in six months.
One thing I think we should do is subsidize reactors for reusing waste. The economics of that are less important than getting rid of existing waste, and it’s better than tossing it down a mineshaft for a hundred thousand years.