Nuclear plants can actually load follow. France does it. It is cheaper to use them as baseload plants because their costs are basically all fixed, but if you set up an electric generation system with the primary goal of greenhouse gas emissions first instead of price first then you can get 80+% of your electricity from nuclear.
Love this right-wing fantasy that the green movement somehow stopped the entire nuclear industry in its tracks. Man, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the environmental movement had that kind of clout. The greens can’t even keep Trump from gutting the Endangered Species Act and selling drilling rights to national parks, you really think they’re the ones with any power?
The environmental movement has fought the nuclear power industry for decades when it should have allied with it. Certainly the environmental movement and other nuclear power opponents have capitalized on a few incidents that caused a couple of dozen deaths to turn public opinion against nuclear power. If they had been working to promote nuclear power instead of scaremongering against it who knows what would have been possible.
Which nuclear plants have not been built anyway and why?
Here’s an article about the most recent approval of nuclear power plants.
No nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. After the accident, the NRC adopted more stringent safety standards, which caused construction costs for nuclear plants to skyrocket and stopped dozens of planned plants in their tracks.
So, what safety standards should be relaxed?
And regarding the Vogtle station mentioned in the article - the original phase in 1987-9 the estimated cost was $660M, but it ended up costing $8.87B. And the article from 2012 said the two new plants were expected to cost $14B and go into service in 2016 or 2017. They’re not in service yet. They’re now projected to go into service in 2021 or 2022 and cost $25B.
Not saying plants should close. The costs are largely sunk and the risks don’t even go away just because you shut a plant down. Don’t shut them while you’re still generating electricity with fossil fuels. That doesn’t mean the future is nuclear. Nuclear is the bridge.
How about some concrete examples of plants that were stopped by environmentalists and if they were stopped because of safety regulations, what safety regulations do you think should be relaxed?
Right, nuclear is the bridge we should have been building for the last 20 years, all of which it was obvious climate change was a very serious problem. Instead the 3 mile island and Chernobyl scares completely shut down that bridge. So instead of being like France with 80% of our electricity made with clean zero carbon nuclear we’re burning coal and gas for the foreseeable future.
I mean, if these people have safety concerns it seems like it’s incorrect to describe them as “greens” and more like they’re ordinary slobs who are worried about thier personal safety.
I don’t think any safety regulations should be relaxed. I don’t think that safety regulations have been what has prevented any nuclear plants from being built. I think nuclear plants weren’t built for 30 years because people were scared of nuclear power and didn’t want it around them. And they were scared of nuclear power because of sensationalist accounts of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. And instead of calming those fears and pointing out that nuclear power is a very good solution to a lot of environmental problems, and that we can and should upgrade existing plants to be safer and build even safer new plants, the environmental movement was more than happy to oppose the nuclear industry at every turn. All while coal was being burned in increasing amounts, killing thousands every year and contributing to global warming.
Maybe. But what happened after 3-Mile Island was there were new safety requirements. Which of them shouldn’t have been required?
Also Reagan shouldn’t have ripped the solar panels off the White House and set the industry back 10 years.
IMO, coal should be banned and the market can decide what to do, but that shouldn’t necessarily mean relaxing safety standards.
What makes you think that?
I already said I don’t think any of the new safety regulations should be relaxed
It’s kinda lol to blame environmentalists instead fossil fuel interests, right?
If you see any fossil fuel lobbyists in here attacking nuclear and defending coal let me know
It’s just the standard right-wing judo move where we find out that liberals were the Real Racists after all. Turns out the guys who were right about the climate crisis from day 1 are actually the real villains with their job-killing safety regulations!
Also, I love the crowing about how solar got government subsidies. Who do y’all think was funding Enrico Fermi?
Define rich, because I’m not sure we should be rooting for people making <$1M/yr to be losing their homes
Wake me up when the real oligarchs get smashed
How many people were affected health wise by 3 mile island? The only reports of increased cancers or infant mortality was that from biased non peer reviewed studies. The ones that were legitimate peer reviewed showed no discernible increase in cancer from the general population,
Also, that is one type of reactor that isn’t considered the safest. There was also a lot of negligence involved.
I do think solar should be used a lot too, but there’s no way it can currently be used for a large percentage of our power.
What’s lol is that the US is not leading the way in clean energy and instead, catering to the fossil oil and fuel industry. What’s more lol is that many of the Trump/conservative supporters who would stand to gain the most from a vigorous project such as the green new deal are still clinging to coal jobs 
I only talk about solar so much because it’s what I know. It’s what works the best in the region I live in. And it’s something that has a low barrier to entry and you can be your own boss.
Wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass are all cool too. All kinds of waste should be generating energy. Right now biomass supplies about 2% of electricity and the potential (according to the union of concerned scientists) is for about 20%.
Nevertheless, it makes sense how it did scare a lot of people off nuclear power plants. Data from such things isn’t always readily available and the concern was that future generations might be born with a 3rd eye or something. Then I think Chernobyl happened just a few years after? I at least get it if people weren’t willing to say it’s no big deal back then.
I also heard someone recently say that our nuclear power plants are in dire need of updating? The guy’s an electrician with a company that contracts with nuclear power plants. Maybe just hyperbole because it’s his business. I honestly know less than a little about it
A 30% tax credit is an enormous subsidy! There are also regulatory subsidies like renewable portfolio standards/SRECs that compel or subsidize solar adoption. Net metering is an implicit subsidy too.
Maybe I’m confused, but I thought your business was doing solar installations? I think your perspective and depth of knowledge are really valuable and enlightening, but it does seem like you are talking your book to a big extent.