Solar is safe, cheap fusion at a distance. Nuclear is expensive, continually mismanaged local fission. Batteries are short duration fusion buffers. Batteries will be needed for EVs as well, so cost will continue to decline as manufacturing learning and capacity scales up. Enough sunlight hits the Earth every 30 minutes to power humanity’s energy needs for a year.
Keep existing nuclear plants running for as long as safely possible, for sure, but stop throwing good money after bad with new generators. Build batteries (including pumped hydro where able), renewables, and transmission. Throw in some demand response or load shifting for loads that can tolerate being scheduled around renewables production (Google does this for compute using ElectricityMap.org, and Nest does demand response in aggregate as a revenue source, when utilities send a signal to shed AC load temporarily on peak consumption days versus firing up gas peakers).
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
Edit: (HN throttling, can’t reply)
@mrits: Telling people what they want doesn’t work. If they want cars (they do), you sell them EVs. You use your margin to build out a global EV charging network and battery factories. I don’t live in traffic, that’s a choice for others to make. The world is full of space batteries can be installed out of the way to meet net zero goals. There is no such thing as an ideal world, just nudges of consumers towards more positive macro outcomes.
Keep existing nuclear plants running for as long as safely possible, for sure, but stop throwing good money after bad with new generators. Build batteries (including pumped hydro where able), renewables, and transmission. Throw in some demand response or load shifting for loads that can tolerate being scheduled around renewables production (Google does this for compute using ElectricityMap.org, and Nest does demand response in aggregate as a revenue source, when utilities send a signal to shed AC load temporarily on peak consumption days versus firing up gas peakers).
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
Edit: (HN throttling, can’t reply)
@mrits: Telling people what they want doesn’t work. If they want cars (they do), you sell them EVs. You use your margin to build out a global EV charging network and battery factories. I don’t live in traffic, that’s a choice for others to make. The world is full of space batteries can be installed out of the way to meet net zero goals. There is no such thing as an ideal world, just nudges of consumers towards more positive macro outcomes.