For a completely decarbinized grid, there are two paths: 1) 100% renewables plus storage, or 2) ~90% renewable plus storage, and 10% nuclear/advanced geothermal.
There's lots of debate about which one would be cheapest. But the true answer depends on how the cost curve of technologies develops over the coming 20 years. (Personally, I think 100% renewables will win because projections of all experts severely overestimate storage and renewables costs, while simultaneously severely underestimating the costs of nuclear. Renewables and storage are always over delivering, while nuclear always under delivers. So I think that trend will continue...)
You won't hear much about this in the popular media though, because they are too afraid of offending conservatives with politically incorrect facts. Sites like Ars Technica cover it though:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22092022/inside-clean-ene...
Meanwhile renewables are surging and every relevant expert suggests they'll dominate the future.
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-is-gettin...
The graph without the relatively flat hydro is even more stark.
The stuff people say about nuclear on this forum is on the level of flat earthism and they seem totally unashamed of this.
They have solar farms in Alaska and the Antarctic because it's cheaper than shipping in diesel for 6 months of the year.
And the law of economics making modular renewables cheaper is Wright's Law:
Large parts of USA, Canada, non Mediterranean Europe and northern half of Asia. A lot of people live there.
>> And the law of economics making modular renewables cheaper is Wright's Law:
I asked which economic law makes ONLY renewables getting cheaper with time. Why couldn't nuclear get cheaper in time?
> Wright's law, also known as the experience curve effect, states that as the cumulative production of a product doubles, the labor time or cost per unit declines by a fixed percentage
We're up to about 8 billion solar panels produced ever, maybe 2 billion or so a year now.
That's a lot of doublings.
There's been about 700 nuclear plants. Not a lot of doublings.
You need a lot of panels to match one nuclear power plant though, and they were/are heavily subsidized.
>> There's been about 700 nuclear plants. Not a lot of doublings.
Obviously, because there was/is a lot pressure against building them. I think China demonstrates, that they can be built rather quickly and cheaper and cheaper, if the obstacles are removed.
It's not really a fair competition when something heavily subsidized and the other thing is almost banned.