Thursday, October 31, 2024
The Nuclear Revival
You can't blame these companies for going nuclear, and I am not at all bothered that they have. I love nuclear power. It is clean and even more renewable than solar or wind since the infrastructure lasts nearly forever and the fuel, if reprocessed, can last a very long time indeed. Solar and wind are unreliable, and the infrastructure has a very short lifespan. And nuclear plants don't get destroyed by a hailstorm or tornado.
I'm glad they are going nuclear. What I am pissed about is that the very people who are doing so have been wagging their fingers at us, trying (and too often succeeding) to get us to use unreliable power.
Reliable power for me, not for thee.
Wind is pretty stupid, but solar has some great applications for off-the-grid power generation. As a niche product, I think solar power is cool. As a way to generate power for the grid, it is ridiculous. The cost-per-kilowatt numbers are cooked like you wouldn't believe, so forget the phony stats. Wind and solar are expensive when you include all the costs, and they make the grid unstable.
Big tech companies understand these problems and only use solar and wind for show. They use reliable power for themselves, as do all the hypocrites who want to shove renewables at us. Even home solar systems use the grid as a backup because nobody wants to rely on the wind or the sun to keep the refrigerator going.
To the Big Tech companies, I say: have at it. Build all the nuclear you want. But for God's sake, quit lecturing the rest of us about "renewable" energy and send some of your expensive lobbyists to help convince regulators to start approving nuclear plants for everybody.
“Available 24/7” means dispatchable, like coal and natural gas, not weather-dependent like solar and wind.
We are about to witness a rapid resurgence in nuclear energy.
