Comment by margalabargala
16 hours ago
I suspect it's all a moot point.
Prices of solar and battery are plummeting. If anything they are dropping faster than they were 5—10 years ago.
10 years from now I suspect the grid will largely be transitioning remaining fossil fuel base load to solar and wind backed with batteries, because the economics will be there to overbuild the solar and battery to the extent needed to provide reliable base load through the winter.
The land/Wh required for solar/wind and battery compared to nuclear is strikingly different.
Nuclear will always be in the backseat for the foreseeable.
The land available for solar and wind is immense, especially because wind can be put in the ocean. The land required for batteries is tiny, especially compared to a nuclear power plant.
The challenges are going to be political, not spatial or geographic. China could put enough solar panels in its western deserts to power the whole country. The US could do the same in its southwest. It would take about 15% of the land area of Arizona to power the entire US.
That's physically achievable but politically difficult.