EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.

I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable.

Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on.

You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.

Until we solve the long-term energy storage problem that renewable sources have, we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

So far the cleanest solution we've come up with is gas plants, but gas plants made Europe extremely dependent on Russia. The alternatives are oppressive regimes or the US, which has been starting trade wars seemingly out of boredom.

Nuclear fuel, on the other hand, is exported not only by Kazachstan, but also Canada and Australia. In terms of "countries you don't want to depend on", I'd rather have Canada than Qatar.

I'm not sure if the economics still work out if you factor in the ineffective, half-assed Russian sanctions that have Europe fund Russia's war economy. The only alternative is probably coal, but only if you don't hold coal to the same standards in terms of waste disposal and nuclear exposure of the public as nuclear plants.

Nuclear isn't cheap, in part because it's become a niche market only some countries still participate in, but the politics and large-scale economics aren't as bad as the anti-nuclear crowd make them seem. They'd probably be bad for America, because the mighty oil industry stands to lose money and they'd need to import their fuel, but for countries already importing their fuel the balance is completely different.

Infuriatingly, the crowd that wants to do something about global warming also seems to think every nuclear reactor is going full Chernobyl within the decade. All of the parties I even consider voting for are staunch anti-nuclear activists for no documented reason other than "we don't like it".

> we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

AFAICT this is not really nuclear. They excel at constant production, not switch ability to fill in around renewables.

Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily. It's on/off that takes a long time. And you can supplement nuclear with pumped storage hydro to steepen its turn up/down curve in extremis.