Comment by umvi
2 days ago
> The solar panels installed in China during the past 2 years produce as much electricity as all of their nuclear plants combined.
Because it doesn't have very many nuclear power plants relative to its size? France has the same number of nuclear reactors as China despite being a much smaller country.
I'd argue 50-60 nuclear power plants having the same energy output as millions (billions?) of solar panels is a win for nuclear - it's much higher energy density, much smaller environmental footprint, much smaller infrastructure investment, etc.
Worth mentioning that while France has 57 operating reactors and China has 58 operating reactors, it's also the case that China has an additional 38 under construction (with plans for more again) compared to France having zero additional reactors under construction (despite announcing plans for new reactors three years past).
* https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
* https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
>I'd argue 50-60 nuclear power plants having the same energy output as millions (billions?) of solar panels is a win for nuclear - it's much higher energy density, much smaller environmental footprint, much smaller infrastructure investment, etc.
I don't think that's correct. The infrastructure investment is clearly much much smaller for solar, in practice. IEA and other organizations have observed that solar is the cheapest source of electricity that humankind has ever developed, and this was already a few years ago, when it was more expensive than now.
Consider that several countries are adding the equivalent of several nuclear plants of energy generation yearly by now. Germany, Japan, Canada to name a few. Adding the same capacity with nuclear would be a budget-defining decision for years.
Solar is just so much cheaper and faster to make that nuclear becomes "too little too late" by comparison.
If any nation could decide to make 100s of nuclear plants to match the output from solar it's China, but it just doesn't make sense. It makes way more sense to invest in energy storage to stabilize the massive amounts of energy from solar. China does that too.
Nations that have nuclear weapons will of course keep nuclear plants around anyway, but it is really really hard to make a case for nuclear just for energy supply in 2025.