China matters, and it can bypass procedural democracy. Large, slow-to-deploy nuclear still has to compete with quick-deploying, cost-decreasing solar and wind (and serious efficiency measures) while it is on the costs-rising-due-to-learning part of its rollout curve. Procedural democracy will not allow new nuclear of any kind in most of the rich democracies. We need everything, but solar PV, wind, and efficiency are the low-hanging fruit.
I agree we should pursue it all. Solar is rolling out pretty quickly right now. It's later, when we want to get past using fossil to compensate for intermittency, that nuclear will be especially important...and it would be good to be past that learning curve by then.
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China matters, and it can bypass procedural democracy. Large, slow-to-deploy nuclear still has to compete with quick-deploying, cost-decreasing solar and wind (and serious efficiency measures) while it is on the costs-rising-due-to-learning part of its rollout curve. Procedural democracy will not allow new nuclear of any kind in most of the rich democracies. We need everything, but solar PV, wind, and efficiency are the low-hanging fruit.
I agree we should pursue it all. Solar is rolling out pretty quickly right now. It's later, when we want to get past using fossil to compensate for intermittency, that nuclear will be especially important...and it would be good to be past that learning curve by then.