People said that 40 years ago and see where we are today, if people hadn't said that we would have a much cleaner world today. We might have that good and cheap batteries in 20 years, but also possible we wont have that. Would you really wanna bet our planets climate on your gut feeling that batteries will get that good?
> People said that 40 years ago and see where we are today
That it's true today because people worked on it for 40 years? It would've been amazing if more nuclear had been built 40 years ago. But it wasn't and there's nothing you or I can do about it.
> We might have that good and cheap batteries in 20 years
They're already good and cheap. And more like 5 years than 20.
> Would you really wanna bet our planets climate on your gut feeling that batteries will get that good?
It isn't a gut feeling. They'll get better faster than you can build new nuclear because that's what we've seen in the past 20 years. No one's holding nuclear back on pure vibes. Solar + batteries is already beating nuclear and will continue to increase the lead. That's just math. Its true boss fight is fossil fuels and achieving mass electrification.
If anything, when new nuclear does get built eventually, it will benefit from all the progress made on electrification and new transmission and storage capacity.
That relies on imports of nuclear from France and isn't winter, its easy to say you don't need nuclear when you import a massive amount of others nuclear when the sun doesn't shine as much.
UK is not energy independent so its not a good example.
Details matter. Most countries have environmental laws, but their teeth differ.
Polish environmental law is quite notorious for being deliberately easy on developers (at least outside national parks), which translates into a lot of construction activity.
OTOH Californian CEQA is such a NIMBY/BANANA weapon of mass anti-construction that I have heard of it, despite being located a third of a world away.
That is only a $1.2bn deal and shared with another firm. Having different contractors from all over the world do different little parts isn't a good way to reduce costs.
> The ideas and concepts are there, but they are held private because their environment includes bullies that suppress non-mainstream perceptions.
You mean like teachers? Teachers bullies kids that answers wrong in class, so if you try to think for yourself rather than answer according to the book the teacher often makes fun of you and the rest of the kids laugh at you for not saying the right thing.
Just making teachers not do that would probably go a long way to changing the culture. Kids feeling fear of being asked a question in class is a strong signal we are doing something wrong.
I mean the students first, and the teachers second. Just ask any of the "not popular" kids why they do not speak up, and notice they are already afraid to say honestly, they've already been damaged by the bullyscape that is human childhood.
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