Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Regardless of what you think about new nuclear&#x27;s potential, we need to protect and upgrade (and possibly even resurrect recently-mothballed) existing nuclear power plants.<p>&quot;Oh, we&#x27;re going to replace that nuclear power plant with wind and solar!&quot;<p>Oh, really?
Are you going to do that AFTER phasing out fossil fuel plants or BEFORE? Because if it&#x27;s before, you&#x27;re making the case that climate change is a lower priority than retiring the cleanest and one of the cheapest and safest power sources humankind has ever developed. Because you could ALWAYS choose to just replace those fossil power plants with wind and solar and batteries instead, but you&#x27;re making the decision to keep that fossil fuel plant running longer than it needs to.<p>Similar argument for getting rid of existing hydroelectric dams.<p>And I&#x27;m talking about long existing plants, here. All those cement emissions (and reservoir emissions for hydro) already happened and were &quot;paid for.&quot; We need to protect all near-zero energy sources until the last fossil power plant on the continent is decommissioned. Then go ahead and retire your nuclear or hydro power plant.<p>(Addressed to no one in particular, but these arguments in favor of premature retiring of functioning clean energy power plants are widespread and it ticks me off. Plus, retiring them early also increases the cost of electricity, which slows electrification. I bet electric cars would be a LOT more popular--and fossil fuel cars less popular--in Germany if their electricity price weren&#x27;t so insane.)