Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution: study
Over the years I have changed my perspective on nuclear power.  I still think it is useful, yet, I do understand it brings to the table some potentially serious black swan events.<p>In trying to understand energy transition I have come to the conclusion that neither grid-scale solar nor nuclear are the answer.  Wind, however, seems to be.  It isn&#x27;t hard for people to understand why wind is likely a better idea than nuclear.  I won&#x27;t waste any time exploring that comparison.<p>Wind, I have learned, seems to be massively better than solar across many vectors.  BTW, I am not talking about offshore wind.  Not sure that compares well at all.<p><pre><code>    Energy production per installed GW:  
        Wind:  3.07 TWh&#x2F;GW
        Solar: 1.33 TWh&#x2F;GW (solar is reliably off half the time)

    Land use per GW:
        Wind:    750 acres&#x2F;GW
        Solar: 3,900 acres&#x2F;GW

    Land use to provide all Tesla Master Plan solar + wind:
        Wind:   1 Hawaii (area of all islands)
        Solar: 12 Hawaii&#x27;s
        or,
        Wind:   2.5% of California
        Solar: 30% of California

    Annual Operations and Maintenance costs :
        Wind:  1.00
        Solar: 1.33 times wind O&amp;M

    Initial investment in factories:
        Wind:  $212 billion
        Solar: $ 11 billion

    Storage required for 95% reliability:
        Wind:    3 hours
        Solar: &gt;12 hours

    Wind requires 4x less batteries, with all the cost, 
    recycling and ecological advantages this delivers.

    Build supply chain origin:
        Wind:  Diverse
        Solar: Heavy reliance on China

    Long term supply chain (maintenance, parts, etc.) origin:
        Wind:  Diverse
        Solar: Heavy reliance on China (forever)
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Frankly, I used to think we really needed a large number (200+) of new nuclear power plants to be able to make a full transition to electric ground, sea and air transport as well as 100% electrification of homes and various industrial processes.  From my current perspective I think it might be far more intelligent to focus on using wind for grid-scale, no grid-scale solar and residential&#x2F;commercial solar + storage for local load mitigation.<p>This is where I disagree with Tesla&#x27;s Master Plan 3.  I don&#x27;t think that grid-scale solar is a good idea at all.