Nuclear energy is being made to look cheap artificially. Don't fall for it.
The question to ask is, who ends up footing the bill for a nuclear accident? We all do. And it could be world changing in the case of a solar storm. Nctnico, I've repeatedly tried to explain the problem with the loss of the ultimate heat sink and nuclear fission reactors - the issue that caused the multiple meltdowns at Fukushima. Do you understand what Ive been trying to explain there? Why its a serious problem we need to address far better than we have before we go back to creating lots more 'hot' nuclear waste that has to be cooled?
Don't trust people who claim to be experts who shrug off this potential problem.
Also, be aware that as the global economy cools off (deindustrialization) due to the shift to automation - its likely to get harder and harder to make the insane profit margins that some entities demand as their keep.
Are they above creating crises themselves? No? Are you sure?
Okay, here is what could spark a huge REAL crisis in this area. A solar storm like the "Carrington" one in 1859. (Named after the scientist who discovered it) It would go like this. A huge solar flare would erupt, sending charged particles right at the Earth. If it was detected we would have a very short time minutes, to remove thousands of power transformers from the grid and shut it down. Shut down the power and pull the plugs, everywhere. Would that happen properly? lets look at other emergencies when similar systems ad been put into place, like for tsunamis. Have they succeeded when put to the test? No.
This has to succeed, the way things are set up now.
Or that CME, when it hits Earth (One narrowly missed us just a few years ago) could wipe out the power grid, globally, which would be bad enough, because literally everything depends on electricity. For example, people who are depending on electricity to heat, might not have any alternative source of heat. But that would just be the beginning because shortly afterward, the lack of energy at nuclear power plants - if they did not have backup already in place to cool the reactor cores and spent fuel pools, which takes power, power enough to last as long as the power was out, which could be months or even years. Left without cooling, the decaying nuclear fuel would get hotter and hotter and start to burn through whatever was enclosing it. This might be happening in multiple places. That would stretch the resources that exist to handle these crises thin. Its not at all impossible, that would cause a huge, global nuclear crisis.
Loss of the ultimate heat sink.With multiple nuclear power plants losing their abilities to cool themselves, then going critical..
This would be addressable, but it would take a desire to fix it which does not translate into immediate profits.
Have we addressed it yet?
Fully?
Where are we on that?
These are the questions we need to have answered before we build any more power plants to create even more risks and more nuclear waste that needs to be stored safely.
Its not rocket science.
For profit entities are not objective enough in my opinion to handle this risk. Are governments?
In many places PV and wind are considerably cheaper than nuclear. Even with something like 50% lost on storage (e.g. hydrogen) it can be a good alternative. Improvements on the storage part would be definitely good to make is more practical. It likely won't be as cheap as coal - but chances are good to compete with nuclear when it comes to price.
But those storage technologies don't exist yet. Electricity from nuclear does exist. Recently I saw a video from a Dutch scientist saying we could do without nuclear. I was pleasantly surprised that storage was mentioned in the video. However when the video was over I was still left with the question on how the storage for electricity from solar and wind would work exactly. Without knowing how the storage is going to take place you don't know the price. Currently nuclear, gas and coal are the batteries for solar and wind but those costs aren't factored into the price of electricity from solar and wind. IOW: solar and wind are made to look cheap artificially.