'Unstoppable force' of solar power propels world to 40% clean electricity

I, for one, welcome the solar age. Truly clean power that can be generated decentralised, on a regional, even local commune level.

It's wild how big companies, certain countries and billionaires are still holding on to nuclear fission (not fusion).

Nuclear reactors:

- take decades to build

- go massively over budget, at least 2x if not more [0]

- are inherently uneconomically: energy companies would never invest/build them on their own, only by lobbying governments for HUGE subsides (in various forms) do they get build

- inherently uninsurable: no private insurance company would insure a plant, again if private companies would need to build/run them on their own, every insurance company would deny them

- deconstructing them takes again billions and decades

- there's still no real-world solution (or even long-term secure storage) for nuclear waste in the world

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Solar / Wind / Storage

Compare the 60 Billions for 1 single nuclear plant (UK) to what you would get from the same investment in solar (plus battery tech getting cheaper and better for storage). We are talking about differences in the magnitudes.

About the only value nuclear fission has is that's a central power source which gives the entities owning it huge power over the consumers.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/uk-nuclear-plant-hinkley-point-co...

This is not an adequate way to look at nuclear. If you check the stats of established constructions and not first of a kind prototypes (check Barakah instead Hinkley), the construction time is closer to 10 years, often less.

With transmutation and the option for recycling it altogether, waste is not an issue. Only the low fission parts of the spent fuel is low-grade active for longer than 1000 years, but this is such a low level of radiation, it is comparable to natural uranium formations and not an issue. The high radiation part of the fuel has lost the dangerous level of radiation in less than 1000 years and can be recycled before. The arenic compounds and other substances as byproduct of copper etc production for the mass of renewables have a much longer shelf life of toxitity. Also, you need more of them.

- Even if 'only' 10 years construction time: How much solar energy can be build in that time at a fraction of the cost?

- So we need to find secure expensive, leak-free storage only for 1000 years? Most countries cant even plan 5 years ahead.

- No words on generated Energy produced per Dollar.

Your rebuttal is not as significant as you might think.

The average is probably between 10 and 20 years.

This is on top of an LCOE that is 5x that of solar or wind power and the need for catastrophe insurance to be provided essentially for free by the taxpayer on top of that.

(Fukushima cost about $1 trillion to clean up, the liability cap for US plants is about $250 million because otherwise private insurers who understand the risks better than you or I WILL NOT shoulder the liability)

The cost of nuclear can be dragged down by taking various risks that the people getting that sweet free catastrophe insurance would probably be happy with.

The mention of nuclear in the article was weird:

> But [solar at 7%] remains eclipsed by wind, which grew to 8% last year, and nuclear to 9%.

Which is a bit mangled but seems to be suggesting nuclear grew to 9%.

Nuclear did grow slightly in absolute terms, but in percentage terms it hit a 45 year low as the total grew faster and so the share shrunk.

> With transmutation and the option for recycling it altogether, waste is not an issue

Yes, waste is an issue. We only recently got the first permanent storages and their viability is to be tested.

Dropping barrels in the ocean was just kind of recently disallowed. Nuclear waste processing still drops contaminated water into oceans and rivers.

Water is a brilliant radiation absorber. But you can be sure this radiation will at some point reach the food chain. These are insurmountable costs and other technologies don't have these problems, toxicity of materials is different from ratiation from decaying materials.

Perhaps there is a place for nuclear power, but its problems should not be ignored or downplayed as well as its costs.