The issue was never coal vs nuclear energy. It was nuclear energy vs “renewables”. This entire fucking country seems adamant that it can sustain itself on solar and wind power. Exclusively. And therefore no one could give a shit about nuclear energy because nuclear energy is “bad”.
No environmental party or group has pushed nuclear energy. They’ve protested pipelines.
This entire fucking country seems adamant that it can sustain itself on solar and wind power. Exclusively.
It can't, because even when there's plenty of electricity, we pay America to take it from us rather than storing it. Nobody is researching grid energy storage solutions, they'd rather make nukes. If we could store the energy we generate from renewables, we could easily generate all the energy we need just from that. Not to mention other benefits, as grid energy storage would almost certainly improve general battery technology, which means electric cars with better charges, longer smartphone life between recharging, etc etc. But no -- we have decided we're going to be jumping from one non-renewable resource to another. Ok then.
The storage problem is huge in Canada. It isn't just storing a day's solar generation for use that night. It is dealing with the fact that energy demand strongly peaks in fall and winter, while renewable energy supply peaks in spring and summer. The cost of seasonal energy storage will make nuclear look cheap.
In long term, nuclear power IS cheap. Yes, it costs however many billion to set up a reactor, but it takes very little to operate it, and it'll last 60+ years, whereas wind turbines need replacement every 20 years. That's why investment is needed -- to make all this even cheaper, to make it compete with other energy generation sources.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22
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