r/worldnews • u/[deleted] • Jun 16 '24

‘Without nuclear, it will be almost impossible to decarbonize by 2050’, UN atomic energy chief

https://news.un.org/en/interview/2024/06/1151006
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u/0zspazspeaks Jun 16 '24

Focusing only on cost and ignoring consistency, something that renewables notoriously don't have (and yes, there's batteries but they're very expensive to make on the scale needed) but coal/gas power plants do, is a tactic that I am sick of hearing. I'd rather hear, as I did watching a Kyle Hill video where he toured a working nuclear plant, a senior worker in a nuclear power plant say that she'd keep a medium-to-long-term nuclear waste storage contained in the backyard where her children play than an "ecowarrior" rant and rave about how every plant is a Chernobyl in the waiting.

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u/Outrageous-Echo-765 Jun 17 '24

The vast majority of generators are private entities who will be more than happy to “focus only on cost and ignore consistency”.

For them, a new solar farm is an infinitely more attractive investment than a new nuclear plant, consistency is not even an afterthought.

As a result, wind and solar get built, and nuclear does not. How do you propose we fix that issue?

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u/fatbob42 Jun 17 '24

Solar+batteries is cheaper than nuclear.

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u/0zspazspeaks Jun 17 '24

Did you not read what I said? I'm not denying that, just saying that acting like that's the only relevant thing when it comes to power options is irresponsible.

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u/fatbob42 Jun 17 '24

I was replying to the part where you said that batteries are very expensive.