And almost no discussion about nuclear power for base demand or the need for gas turbines for fast ramp-up at peak capacity use times.
I agree. I think nuclear is the ultimate “Green Power”.
But after a very successful anti-nuclear propaganda campaign in the 80s & 90s, nuclear power is a long way in the future. If ever.
Hell, I am old enough to remember a nuclear power plant that was built, certified and promptly decommissioned, then converted to natural gas. Fort Saint Vrain in Colorado.
If it had been left nuclear, you would not be seeing those thousands of acres of windmills soiling the views north of Greeley.
Also no talk about hydro. The one completely renewable power source that is also reliable.
But environmental regulations have made it impossible to build new dams and we haven’t in decades.
The problem with wind and solar is that they a too dilute and too intermittent to actually supply continuous electrical energy. Nuclear is the real solution but progress is being blocked by the NNRA and other regulatory agencies that are stuck in the technology era of Light Water Reactors (LWR) that require solid fuel and cooling using high pressure water that must be actively pumped to prevent a meltdown.
The smartest man in America today is Ed Pfeil who is the founder and CEO of Elysium Industries. His 50 years of building every kind of nuclear reactor for the Navy has led him to a design for a liquid chloride salt (melted table salt) fast breeder reactor. His design not only generates its own fuel for a hundred years but safely burns denatured weapons grade plutonium that is currently laying around at the Savannah River processing plant in South Carolina.
The waste products for this reactor decay much faster than current LWR reactors and would be down to background levels in 100 years. This is because they keep all the long decay stuff in the liquid salt fuel and split it off as “starter fuel” to newer reactors kind of like making sourdough bread.
The whole reactor has been designed to address the specific problems of scalability, proliferation, and cost reduction that Pfeil had to face over his long career. He has been working with planners in Ohio to build a demonstration version, but his goal is to convince Tim Scot and Linsay Graham to get the Savannah River plutonium burner built in time to keep the US in compliance with its treaty with Russia to dispose of weapons grade plutonium. This is such a win-win it for the greenies and energy consumers you would think it would be a slam dunk.
If you study the energy sector for any length of time you understand the nuclear energy HAS to be a big part of the equation whether we use fossil fuels or not.
Even if we get fusion reactors we have to have better batteries if we want to use electricity for transportation.
The renewable sources in Europe are probably inadequate for running the trains to which they are addicted