I appreciate your thoughtful post. It’s much more pleasant and persuasive than some of the crude attacks on renewable energy I’ve seen in this forum that rely on repetitive distortions. We can have discussions without resorting to zealotry and bigotry.
I agree that nuclear power has some theoretical advantages. Yes. If you keep building nuclear power plants you could eventually replace all fossil fuel power plants, but there are practical questions about this. Do you really see this happening? France is held up as a unique example, but the French government aims for 35% of electricity generation to be renewable by 2030. Major offshore projects, including the 1.5 GW Centre Manche 2 farm, are underway. The government has launched tenders for 12 GW of renewable energy, focusing heavily on offshore wind. Solar is growing rapidly, with targets to reach 54–60 GW of capacity by 2030. The shift toward wind and solar is central to reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
A great advantage of renewable energy is that the production cycle is much simpler: extraction, processing, and operation are all done at the same site, without intermediate transportation costs. Nuclear energy requires extraction of uranium and transport and processing of the uranium to nuclear fuel. There are additional costs associated with storage of nuclear waste that are very high when you project them out to the lifetime of that waste material. Overall, renewable energy is successful because of its relative safety, simplicity, and flexibility that allow it to work well within a market based economic system. We can fully expect that costs for renewable energy will continue to decrease.
Both France and China are using both renewable and nuclear energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. That’s the valuable example they provide. I count myself as a renewable energy enthusiast but the scenario of nuclear energy replacing renewable energy doesn't "scare me" at all; I just don't see any possibility of that happening when there is super abundant solar and wind energy.
= new reply since forum marked as read