I think those are pros of nuclear. The alternative to a static system like that would be a very diverse flexible one with lots of different energy types and markets to encourage users to flex usage up or down.
I’m not trying to make a case either way though, just explaining what perspectives might lead people to be concerned about climate change and still anti-nuclear.
I appreciate that. It didn’t come across as anything other than informative, and fostering discussion.
I’m personally a fan of nuclear. I know the long lead times of creating the facilities, largely because of the safety and protection systems that need to be built, tested and validated before the plant can export a single watt of power. All of which I understand.
My background is in IT, and the most stable systems, which are almost always preferred over alternatives, are distributed. What I want to see is that the majority of generation is done by homes in the neighborhood they serve. So the power needed, is the power inside that area; this wouldn’t eliminate the need for a larger grid to interconnect all of those cells of production together, which would allow any single production location to go down and the power would still be delivered to the people in that area, borrowing excess from neighboring areas.
This would, however, make the grid power a lot more communal of a resource. I’m sure that works inspire a lot of “communist” type arguments…
However, the benefits of such a system would be clear and fairly robust compared to the more centralized systems we’re using now.
I don’t know if that’s really viable, either with SMR (or other nuclear), or using solar/wind/whatever.
