Ironically, a major reason for this is environmentalists themselves. Nuclear power would be way cheaper if it wasn't for their panic over things that contain atoms.

In terms of safety, there's a big difference between nuclear technologies that fail elegantly like LFTR and more traditional designs that tend to use weaponized isotopes with very long half-lives, and can meltdown and explode when operated incorrectly.

I can understand why environmentalists look at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and say, hmm, maybe we shouldn't do that.

I really doubt that environmental regulations more than doubled the price. Especially when they knew about those regulations when they were planning it.

That's the easy way out, just blame it on panic and not numbers, because you do not have numbers that make nuclear power look good compared to renewable energy. This is not about grandma being scared, this is about scientists presenting scientific facts and studies.

There have been 3 fairly dangerous and catastrophic meltdowns rendering partial or whole plants inoperable within 4 decades. These meltdowns have caused long term environmental damage, killed people, etc.

If you're averaging almost a meltdown a decade, and where each time we have been lucky it hasn't been worse, I reject any claims that this is a safe technology that we have under sufficient control for it to make sense, especially when we have such cheaper and less dangerous ways to get the power we need now.

https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/30/small-modular-reactors-produce-high-levels-nuclear-waste/

“Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). “These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.”

and

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/18/the-nuclear-fallacy-why-small-modular-reactors-cant-compete-with-renewable-energy/

“Small modular reactors won’t achieve economies of manufacturing scale, won’t be faster to construct, forego efficiency of vertical scaling, won’t be cheaper, aren’t suitable for remote or brownfield coal sites, still face very large security costs, will still be costly and slow to decommission, and still require liability insurance caps. They don’t solve any of the problems that they purport to while intentionally choosing to be less efficient than they could be. They’ve existed since the 1950s and they aren’t any better now than they were then.”

We can and should do both. In another 20 years we are still going to be fighting climate change. Nuclear power can help. It has unique advantages, like every power source. It should be part of the plan in some capacity.

An angle that sometimes isn’t brought up is the land space required by different types of power generation. Renewables actually take way more space, and therefore way more of the environment than nuclear. Renewables have their place, but I think nuclear will always be with us.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.

Renewables won't be able to handle consistent base load requirements, especially as we transition to electric cars and have even more demand from the grid (and that's not even talking about increasing energy demands for heating and cooling to combat the weather effects of climate change), and will need to be supplemented with another form of generation. We need to be building out both nuclear and renewable generation to get us off of fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Take solar as an example, the current technology isn't developed enough to generate the amount of Kilowatt hours necessary to provide ample power to users. You can't build to scale yet. Buffering with nuclear power, despite the long-term fuel waste disposal, is an effective way to help eliminate greenhouse gases.

There's a need for high capacity power generation, and at this point the renewable technologies are not developed enough to ween ourselves entirely off coal and natural gas. Then you have to take into account the growing EV demand, which has barely begun to generate user demand.

Nuclear is like watering a garden with a hose as opposed to renewables that has a squirt gun. The hose can shoot a lot more, a lot harder, for a lot longer. The squirt gun can do a good bit during the day but has to go be filled up at night from the nearby lake. It also doesn't give nearly as much water nor does it do it as hard. The only benefit to renewables is the 'bottomless' aspect where no matter how much of it we use, there's always more.

And not to go fully into this, renewables like solar panels require rare earth materials that we can run out of so hedging our bets on that is dubious at best. Fission, while fear mongered by media into the ground is amazing in modern times and Fusion is on the horizon to try and win the hearts of those still, somehow, unconvinced.

Well that’s a shame. If you’re going to build new reactors, why not try a newer design that’s less risky and puts out less waste? Still waiting for a pebble reactor, for example.