"President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday finalized approval of $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. "
Because renewable energy sources are too expensive?
"President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday finalized approval of $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. "
Because renewable energy sources are too expensive?
How many solar panels and backup batteries would that buy? At $20k per home, that’s 50000 homes that could have their own power system.
According to a couple of articles, a nuclear plant like this can power 500000 homes. So not too shabby of an investment?
https://www.businessinsider.com/georgia-nuclear-reactors-billions-over-budget-years-behind-schedule-2023-12?op=1
And those 50,000 systems would be operational for 20+ years. That kind of investment would bolster the solar industry and further raise public awareness of the beauty of having their own system.
In contrast that money now is going to support poor, short-term profit, decisions by large corporations. After ~2030 we’ll still be in the same mess we currently are: power companies begging for handouts to decommission the plant and then leaving the US government to watch over the waste in perpetuity.
That is the definition of a shabby investment.
If it was any other kind of non-renewable I’d agree with you but nuclear produces far less pollution and it’s reliable so as long as it produces the power there really shouldn’t be a problem. Everyone needs energy and the less that’s made through fossil fuels the better.
Not only that, the nuclear plant will be producing power at its stated capacity 80% of the time or more, only coming offline for maintenance and refueling. Those solar panels will only produce its stated capacity 30% of the time of so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor