It is about the overall build time, giant price tag and later on risks involved.
I am intentionally oversimplifying a bit, but for a new solar park, you ram metal poles into the ground, run metal beams cross those, put panels on those and cable all of these into a transformer with a lot of electronics. If that transformer detects a problem, it cuts power to the grid and that's it. Then you dig up a short caused by moles, replace it and turn it on again. Wind turbines aren't far off of that thing as well.
Wih nuclear you have for example the question of getting fuel. There is little nuclear fuel available outside of ex-soviet control. Efficient use of that fuel is also tricky, because if you tried to enrich nuclear fuel to make use of nuclear waste, you're 90% the way towards nuclear weapons and suddenly it's globally political.
You have the build time. We can stamp down a lot more solar parks and wind turbine parks in the time a single nuclear plant gets accepted, at least in europe. And also the maintenance time. Due to the planning and build costs of nuclear plants, these need to be planned to last 20 - 40 years. Especially with climate change and climate change turning chaotic - who can say some location is safe to start building a nuclear plant for 15 years, and say safe for 20 - 30 years? Especially if we consider that against renewables, and power storage improvements over these 15 years?
Like don't get me wrong. I also hate it that germany exited nuclear before exiting coal. Which, most likely, was lobby'd by the fossil energy companies. But building new nuclear facilities is too late.
As of 2022 those 4 countries accounted for 55% of mined uranium.
The bigger issue that you correctly identify is that building nuclear plants takes a long time. Also, unlike a wind farm or solar farm, the reactor must be completely finished before it can start earning revenue from electricity generation. Many wind and solar projects start supplying power to the grid when they are less than halfway complete, since they're made up of turbines or racks of panels that work independently.
There is little nuclear fuel available outside of ex-soviet control.
That's by design of the federal government as they strong armed all other countries into Non Proliferation Treaties and made nuclear power a bad word. If they want to go green, they can start by defanging the watchdogs.
Comments
It is about the overall build time, giant price tag and later on risks involved.
I am intentionally oversimplifying a bit, but for a new solar park, you ram metal poles into the ground, run metal beams cross those, put panels on those and cable all of these into a transformer with a lot of electronics. If that transformer detects a problem, it cuts power to the grid and that's it. Then you dig up a short caused by moles, replace it and turn it on again. Wind turbines aren't far off of that thing as well.
Wih nuclear you have for example the question of getting fuel. There is little nuclear fuel available outside of ex-soviet control. Efficient use of that fuel is also tricky, because if you tried to enrich nuclear fuel to make use of nuclear waste, you're 90% the way towards nuclear weapons and suddenly it's globally political.
You have the build time. We can stamp down a lot more solar parks and wind turbine parks in the time a single nuclear plant gets accepted, at least in europe. And also the maintenance time. Due to the planning and build costs of nuclear plants, these need to be planned to last 20 - 40 years. Especially with climate change and climate change turning chaotic - who can say some location is safe to start building a nuclear plant for 15 years, and say safe for 20 - 30 years? Especially if we consider that against renewables, and power storage improvements over these 15 years?
Like don't get me wrong. I also hate it that germany exited nuclear before exiting coal. Which, most likely, was lobby'd by the fossil energy companies. But building new nuclear facilities is too late.
Wih nuclear you have for example the question of getting fuel. There is little nuclear fuel available outside of ex-soviet control.
Rosatom (Russia) controls less than half of world uranium enrichment capacity, and none of the other ex-Soviet states have enrichment plants:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
Rosatom had 46% of world enrichment capacity in 2020.
If you mean uranium mining, ex-USSR states (Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan) account for slightly more than half of production:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
As of 2022 those 4 countries accounted for 55% of mined uranium.
The bigger issue that you correctly identify is that building nuclear plants takes a long time. Also, unlike a wind farm or solar farm, the reactor must be completely finished before it can start earning revenue from electricity generation. Many wind and solar projects start supplying power to the grid when they are less than halfway complete, since they're made up of turbines or racks of panels that work independently.
That's by design of the federal government as they strong armed all other countries into Non Proliferation Treaties and made nuclear power a bad word. If they want to go green, they can start by defanging the watchdogs.