Personally, I’m expecting solar and wind energy to become so cheap to produce, i.e. multiple times cheaper than nuclear, that storage can be paid from that difference.
Here’s a fun graph illustrating the current trends:
The only reason nuclear is not outpacing solar and wind right now is because nuclear phobia about accidents that happened before half their critics were even born and those flaws fixed a long time ago. If Nuclear benefitted from the same RnD and public support as other green energy sources we probably would have functional thorium reactors so cheap to run rural comminities could run co-ops operating minature versions to power towns under 1000 homes.
Despite nuclear being shunned and forced out using technology thats stagnated since the 80s its still competitive. With renewed funding and grants to develop further generations of reactors they could easily be the cheapest and safest per kwh bar none.
I hope that’s true, but so far, there aren’t great solutions for large-scale electricity storage. For individual users, you can get large lithium-ion batteries that can store enough power for 2-3 days for a typical American home, but last time I checked those were in the $5000+ range, exclusive of the costs of wiring your home so that you have an immediate back-up in case of power failure.
And, just so I’m clear, I’m 100% in favor of renewables like hydro, solar, wind, and even waves.
Personally, I’m expecting solar and wind energy to become so cheap to produce, i.e. multiple times cheaper than nuclear, that storage can be paid from that difference.
Here’s a fun graph illustrating the current trends:
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
The only reason nuclear is not outpacing solar and wind right now is because nuclear phobia about accidents that happened before half their critics were even born and those flaws fixed a long time ago. If Nuclear benefitted from the same RnD and public support as other green energy sources we probably would have functional thorium reactors so cheap to run rural comminities could run co-ops operating minature versions to power towns under 1000 homes.
Despite nuclear being shunned and forced out using technology thats stagnated since the 80s its still competitive. With renewed funding and grants to develop further generations of reactors they could easily be the cheapest and safest per kwh bar none.
I hope that’s true, but so far, there aren’t great solutions for large-scale electricity storage. For individual users, you can get large lithium-ion batteries that can store enough power for 2-3 days for a typical American home, but last time I checked those were in the $5000+ range, exclusive of the costs of wiring your home so that you have an immediate back-up in case of power failure.
And, just so I’m clear, I’m 100% in favor of renewables like hydro, solar, wind, and even waves.