Comment by yongjik
6 hours ago
As a supporter of nuclear, I think most nuclear supporters will be happy if we achieve carbon neutrality by any means.
But as other commenters pointed out, renewables are not achieving that in most places. According to Google, a staunchly anti-nuclear Germany has 6.95 tons per capita at 2023. France achieved that at 1986 (!!) and is now at 4.14.
It's really a question that should be directed at renewables: "If renewables are so cheap and fast to deploy, how come 39 years after Chernobyl, Germany still cannot get below France in CO2 emission?"
> It's really a question that should be directed at renewables: "If renewables are so cheap and fast to deploy, how come 39 years after Chernobyl, Germany still cannot get below France in CO2 emission?"
Because renewables and storage have only been produced at the scale and price required to achieve this for the last 5 years. [1]
The following article "Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything"[2] is an interesting demonstration of how solar + batteries is pushing other generation sources to the periphery in most of the world.
Edit: Here is some more data for Brazil and the UK showing a large increase in solar over the last 5 years [3][4]
1. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-power-continu...
2. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...
3. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/wind-and-solar-gene...
4.https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/a-record-year-for-b...
just looked at 2, using their own numbers, and it says 97% to 24/365, in a sunny area (Las Vegas), which is like an outage 43 minutes out of every day (24 * 0.03 * 60).
That's not what many would consider as 24/365, and certainly not "every hour of every day".
The report mentions this:
> Las Vegas can reach 97% of the way to 1 GW constant supply.
My take away from the report is not that 24/365 is achieveable everywhere, but how solar + batteries is rapidly dropping in price and is now cheaper with other forms of generation, which will result in solar + batteries making up the majority of generation on the grid.
> In a sunny city like Las Vegas, the estimated Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) at this 97% benchmark is $104/MWh. This is already 22% lower than the $132/MWh estimate based on global average capital costs of solar and battery a year earlier. It is also more cost-effective than coal in many regions ($118/MWh) and far cheaper than nuclear ($182/MWh).
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