Discussion

Yale Environment 360

mchusma: I do think the Iran crisis should continue to push countries towards nuclear + solar. Like Ukraine helped shift some in Europe back to supporting nuclear after foolishly shutting down reactors.

pydry: Poland was ~80% coal before Ukraine. It wasnt energy independence which got them interested in nuclear power it was the idea that they might one day need a nuclear bomb.It's never an economic decision to build nuclear power stations. They're 5x the cost of solar and wind.

itopaloglu83: I wonder how good it could be if the governments offered the exact same amount of subsidies to renewable energy they offer to coal and petroleum, including indirect subsidies like distribution infrastructure etc.

ezst: Or subsidize nuclear because it complements beautifully solar & wind as cheap and clean energy?

nsxwolf: If we actually cared about making nuclear cheap - getting rid of the political barriers to building Gen IV reactors, not throwing away our “waste”, it would beat the pants off solar by operating 24/7 and not using up all our land.

pydry: While we're at it I would actually prefer it if nuclear power paid for its own catastrophe insurance instead of lumping that burden on taxpayers.Currently their liability is capped at $300 million. Fukushima cleanup cost $800 billion.End the insurance free ride first and then maybe we can talk about deregulation.

Jblx2: Is there a good resource for finding out more about fossil fuel subsidies? There are lots of questionable sources out there, like ones that inform you that oil companies only pay taxes on profits, not on revenue, so they consider that a subsidy. But that is just like every other company.

wood_spirit: Most uranium mining is from Russia/CIS and those African counties that have experienced the recent wave of Wagner-assisted coups. The West needs to be energy independent, not just swap who it is dependent upon?

barbazoo: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...It's actually more diverse than I thought.

contubernio: The wars in Ukraine and irán have also highlighted what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic. The idea that such will never happen is as silly as the idea that there will never be an accident or a tsunami. But passive safety won't stop a missile.

downrightmike: That's why we have MADD

bluGill: nuclear is not useful today. It is too slow to change output as load changes. We need to focus on storage for all the excess power renewables give at the best case, shifting that to worst case-

KaiserPro: > It is too slow to change output as load changes.its really not. The new(ie 90s) french reactors are about as fast as Combined cycle gas turbines. Even if its not, it works well enough, spain has shit all battery capacity and manages well enoughbut if you have lots of renewables you need batteries ideally, which means the hypothetical argument of "its too slow" goes away because batteries are there to even out the supply.

cmrdporcupine: The flush of $$ to North American oil companies will unfortunately lead to a pile of investment in more oil and gas exploration, refining, and transport.Seeing that already here in Canada. All parties (except one) seem united in their newfound aspiration to just mine and ship more of the stuff.Talking about transition is politically toxic here right now.

gpm: The shift in Canada predates the oil crisis the US just created... it dates back to at least the election a year ago.I strongly suspect it was primarily created by the US threatening to annex us via "economic force" and thus creating a need to prioritize our short term economic strength over longer term charity things like climate change.

downrightmike: Plus if Canada warms up, hey win win

gpm: This war has definitely had massive positive implications for the financial future of the north west passage...But Canada has a pretty great climate apart from a bit of snow, I wouldn't take warmer at the cost of a small risk of desertification, forest fires, hurricanes, etc. Climate change is unfortunately not just in the nice and warm direction.

cmrdporcupine: If you like forest fires, permafrost collapse, and drought, sure.

cmrdporcupine: I think we absolutely agree and in fact it goes back much further than that. There's a well funded "opposition" in Alberta that sees any constraints on the energy sector as aggressive "imperialism" from central Canadian "elites", and they've cultivated a grievance politics so deep on this subject that they've convinced people in Alberta of some honestly pretty outlandish things. And yes, a lot of this is directly funded from the US.I also think that there's a bigger force at work which is that despite actually being only 2nd or 3rd in Canada's GDP by percentage, energy sector is basically the majority of what's on the TSX and a key driver in equity growth in Canada. And so, the old maxim applies in regards to climate change and Canadians generally: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”I'm from Alberta originally and talking to extended family etc about this topic is just painful. Not officially climate change denying, but in practice fully actually

Ericson2314: Good stuff. But I would blame the Trump admin more then data centers for coal power plants staying on line. Gas would substitute for the coal ata minimum otherwise.> Nine coal power plants that were set for retirement last year have had their operating lives extended, including five in response to emergency orders from the Department of Energy.Maybe the other 4 still stay open without the bullshit DoE order keeping the 5 open, but who knows.

pstuart: A promise of Nuclear SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) is that they could be dropped into existing coal fired power plants and leverage the existing power generation equipment.Apparently they are failing to attain traction because despite the promise of lower cost reactors due to them no longer being bespoke, their LCOE cannot compete with renewables.I'd argue that we should subsidize those and help make them happen NOW even if the cost is not as low as it should be, as we need all the energy we can get and we need to get off of fossil fuels NOW to try to mitigate global warming.

nradov: The problem with small nuclear reactors is that costs don't scale down linearly with size or power output. Like you still need about the same number of armed security guards to protect the site.They might be a good option for remote sites off the grid where physical security isn't a concern.

lithos: They are scaled for politics.Tell someone over 60 or 70 that Poland has better modular reactors than us, and they'll suddenly care.

lynx97: > foolishly shutting down reactors.Ahem, have I missed something? Do you know more then the rest of us? I mean, has the nuclear waste problem actually been solved?

epistasis: Right now renewables and storage are cheaper than most new fossil fuel types of generation. The cheapest new fossil fuel generation, gas, is bottlenecked by limited capacity to build new turbines currently.So if you look at new resources being added to the grid, it's all solar, wind, storage, and a tiny bit of new fossil gas generation.The biggest impediment to more renewables is no longer cost, it's politics and regulations. We have a president that has torpedoes one of the best new sources of wind, offshore wind, just as it's becoming super economical, and all the rest of the world is going to get the benefit of that cheap energy while the US falls behind. Floating offshore wind in the Pacific, based on the same type of tech as floating oil platforms, could provide a hugely beneficial amount of electricity at night and in winter, to balance out solar with less storage and less overbuilding.Meanwhile on land, transmission line are a huge bottleneck towards more solar and wind, and the interconnection queue for the grid is backed out to hell in most places.The technology and economics are there, but the humans and their bureaucracy is not ready to fully jump on board.

dylan604: You seem to be focused on generation and delivery costs. Fossil fuels like coal needs to be mined and then shipped to the power plants.

epistasis: I'm including the costs of fossil fuel extraction in the comparison here; in the US fossil gas is super super cheap which makes it more competitive with solar and storage than in most places.

nradov: If we want to have an industrial economy with 24×7 heavy manufacturing then we need nuclear power for the base load. There's no need to change output much. The amount of batteries needed to keep a huge factory running is ridiculous.

epistasis: The need for nuclear is simply not clear. Storage has advance so quickly, while nuclear tech has remained stagnant or even gotten more expensive.Eve China, the best nuclear power builders out there, are shifting away from massive nuclear to storage and wind and solar.Without a major technological innovation in the nuclear power space, I don't see how it can compete, except at the poles and in niches with very poor renewable resources.

UltraSane: Grid Storage is very expensive and right now only has a few hours of capacity. We would need weeks to really replace nuclear.

KaiserPro: > is bottlenecked by limited capacity to build new turbines currently.its bottlenecked by price. The reason why the UK's electricity is so fucking expensive is because its pegged to international gas prices

epistasis: My comment, like the linked article, was focused entirely on the US's situation, which has abundant fossil gas to the point that many frackers burn it as a waste product.I'd totally agree for UK and continental Europe. The difference between oil and gas is massive on the distribution angle, oil moves easily as long as there's not a naval blockade, but fossil gas requires super super expensive infrastructure either via pipeline or LNG. And with nearly all fossil fuel companies in the last stages of their life, trying to maximize profits on existing capital, it's hard to get investor support to buy infrastructure that costs multiple billions and has limited lifetime. I don't know the details in Europe, but it seems like this phasing out of infrastructure as the transition happens is a major hassle... I'd love any links on that sort of info about Europe.

robrain: I live in a ski resort, you insensitive clod /sWarmer over here in the west means wetter, which means land slides and floods (plus more wild fires in drier seasons). It also means a pivot in tourism (from glaciers, ski resorts, frozen north) to well, who knows what at this stage.Logging also becomes even less advisable (see land slides etc.).So less "hey win win" (with an implied wink), more "hey win, lose, lose, ?".

UltraSane: Stored electricity is much more expensive than nuclear electricity. To replace 1 GW of nuclear running at 92% CF with solar+storage, you need 3-4 GW of solar nameplate plus enough storage to cover nighttime AND multi-day cloudy periods AND seasonal winter deficit. The seasonal piece is what blows up the cost, you'd need weeks of storage, which at current Li-ion prices is economically absurd ($1000s/MWh delivered).

dummydummy1234: How much is industrial scale batteries for solar?

lukeschlather: The LCOE is better than nuclear and nuclear is not getting cheaper while industrial scale batteries continue to get cheaper.

mekdoonggi: Extending the life of existing power infra is low-hanging fruit for more power short term, but the economics of renewables are just unstoppable.Article states 93% of new generation capacity was renewable which is good, but I can sense that nimbyism is growing towards wind and solar. Not to mention the animus towards China who has wisely cornered manufacturing of these.The US has shot itself in the foot because of its energy dependence on its own energy source. The resource curse strikes again.

0xWTF: What's even more important is how solar, and to a lesser extent other tech, served as a gateway for China to accumulate electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry talent the US seems committed to offshoring by incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China). We are training them and not our own.

mrroper: The Republican platform is basically a consolidation of the mentally lazy since it gets the majority of the vote you obviously don't want to waste time trying to teach an American.

ike2792: I don't think this article did the math right. In the linked source from the article (https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...), in 03/2026 combined generation from hydro (26 TWh), wind (53), solar (27.7), bioenergy (3.82), and other renewables (1.51) is 112.03 TWh, vs 120 TWh for natural gas. It's still an impressive number but it is still slightly less than natural gas.

RealityVoid: While I am a big fan of nuclear, I think the issue of land usage for solar is overblown. We use a lot of land for far less useful things. In the end, anything that helps us burn less fossil fuels, I am happy with.

burningChrome: You're also taking away farmland that could be used to produce all kinds of things. Most of the prime solar areas are the same prime areas for agriculture. By creating massive solar farms, you're at the same time, reducing acreage that could be used for range animals and other agriculture:Modeling by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) finds that 83% of projected solar development will be on agricultural land, of which 49% will be on land AFT deems “nationally significant” due to high levels of productivity, versatility, and resiliency. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that between 2009 and 2020, 43% of solar installations were on land previously used for crop production and 21% on land used as pasture or rangeland.In a few years we'll have to deal with an impending disposal issue on farmland:Forecasts suggest that 8 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their lifecycles by 2030. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that less than 10% of decommissioned panels are recycled. Many end up in landfills at the end of their lifecycle, which could be problematic, according to researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute because panels could break and leak toxic materials like lead and cadmium into the soil. If decommissioned panels are not disposed of properly, they could contaminate the surface and groundwater in the surrounding area, making disposal a major issue for farmers and rural communities who rely on groundwater for needs ranging from crop irrigation to drinking water.

mjamesaustin: The land use argument is less than zero.If you replaced ONLY existing fields used to grow corn for ethanol, and turned those into solar panels, you would already exceed the entire current US demand for electricity.Solar energy is a phenomenal use of land, of which we have enormous amounts of in this country.

philipallstar: I still don't understand the economics when it comes to power all the time, not some of the time, and I rarely see that being mentioned in this sort of gung-ho post. I want to feel how you feel - can you help with the specifics there?

epistasis: Saying that grid storage "only has a few hours of capacity" is like saying that a nuclear power reactor "only has 1GW of power." You solve both issues by deploying more. And if you want a longer lithium ion battery installation without the additional power capacity, you can save a bit on inverters.Grid storage is cheap enough that Texas, a purely profit-driven grid is now overtaking California in the amount of battery storage deployed. 58GWh of new grid storage was added in 2025 alone, and the growth is still exponentialhttps://seia.org/news/united-states-installs-58-gwh-of-new-e...

shimman: This administration has killed dozens of solar + wind projects. Don't get your hopes up, the US is run by people that only want to profit off of natural gas and nothing else matters.

abetusk: The economics of solar will bulldoze past any need for subsidies from the government.

knappe: They're not referencing the subsidies.https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...

knappe: Some panel manufacturing has been moved to the US and is actually thriving. Qcells keeps growing, year over year and as of 2023 had expanded their US facilities to manufacture more than 5.1 GW[0] of annual production. I'm aware this is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 339 GW[1] of annual production in China, but we're also talking about a single manufacturer operating in an actively hostile administration and yet is still managing to grow.Given this is the top comment on the article at the moment, I thought it was worth at least pushing back on this sentiment at least a little bit.[0]https://us.qcells.com/blog/qcells-north-america-completes-da...[1] https://futurism.com/science-energy/solar-energy-china-produ...

energy123: The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. New nuclear sucks, and baseload is a false concept that can (and is) being synthetically replicated with over-building + storage + transmission + peaking.

UltraSane: Firm/dispatchable capacity that can run for arbitrary durations is required unless you've solved seasonal storage.https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6Firm low-carbon resources consistently lower decarbonized electricity system costs• Availability of firm low-carbon resources reduces costs 10%–62% in zero-CO2 cases• Without these resources, electricity costs rise rapidly as CO2 limits near zero• Batteries and demand flexibility do not substitute for firm low-carbon resources

energy123: The solution mix needs to be tailored the location.Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage.For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and diversifying wind spatially to reduce correlations which drop more than linearly in distance.For small countries very far away from the equator that have highly variable insolation and limited geography to decorrelate, nuclear may be better. But it cannot be asserted a priori without a simulation study tailored to the specifics of that location. When I said that nuclear is bad, I am talking in generalities about the common case (United States) at current market prices.The paper that you linked is old, we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar.

UltraSane: "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper." we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar."But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.

energy123: > "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper.No it doesn't. Why do you just say that? There are simulation studies like CSIRO's work which show that it's still cheaper than nuclear after you account for everything.

senko: > what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophicThe same holds for hydro. Even worse, there would be no time for evacuation. Yet nobody is considering banning dams.

Dumblydorr: Not in the same ballpark. Chernobyl nearly poisoned the entire continent’s water supply. Nuclear waste is far far worse than excess water.

lesuorac: How would Chernobly poison all of Europe's (or you mean Asia's?) drinking water while all of our nuclear testing hasn't?

UltraSane: Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

stop50: If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.

pjerem: That’s false but hey, you have proofs I guess ?

gpm: > But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.The price of grid storage is absolutely falling exponentially with respect to time.

ambicapter: How is base load a false concept?

gpm: Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power.The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (but in the end is not). Or in some very specific locations hydro (without a reservoir) and geothermal are. But as often bandied about as a "type of power that must be filled" it simply doesn't exist. The type of power that must be filled is dispatachable power, everything else is just "well what cheap non-dispatchable sources can we use to avoid using more expensive dispatchable power".

dxxvi: But the energy prices (electricity and gas) don't go down :-( Then "renewables generate more power than natural gas" is not very meaningful.

tialaramex: Power companies will charge what they can, and to be fair most of their costs aren't generation, the guy who fixed that HV line a block over when the power went out during a winter storm? He doesn't work for free. And somebody paid for all those huge metal pylons or, if there aren't any where you live, the even more expensive underground cables.But, the other practical effect is that if you use less fossil fuels you're making the climate worse more slowly. Now, given we'd like it to stop getting worse just making it worse more slowly isn't the whole answer but it does at least help.