Blanket-against policies against nuclear are not helpful.
Blanket-against policies for subsidising nuclear - including on insurance - is helpful.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2026
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Nuclear might not be the perfect solution but it beats the hell out of blasting toxins into our atmosphere.
Use it alongside solar, wind and hydro and that's the winning combo.
That makes sense. Once nuclear is built, using it is a no-brainer: you’ve already paid for it, so saying no to energy produced at the costs of a few truckloads of fuel a year is purity politics at its most asinine. Building new nuclear plants, with their high capital costs and long lead times, is another question altogether.
Nuclear is unaffordable so it doesn’t matter.
Solar plus batteries are by far the most cost effective and reliable method at the moment but we do have to keep investing in research on all technologies except dirty stuff that releases insane amounts of pollution and CO2.
True, and that means there needs not be an ideology ban of nuclear. We should just do whichever option that's the best, and that won't be nuclear.
a bit of nuclear is kind of necessary to help round out less consistent energy sources a
I really don't get how this argument still flies after all these years. From an economical perspective, nuclear is the worst type of energy generation you can pair renewables with. Putting the still unsolved nuclear waste debate aside for the moment, building nuclear plants is massively expensive and takes a lot of time, which is the exact opposite of what would complement renewables: Cheaply built capacity whose stand-by cost must be as low as possible.
Nuclear reactors need subsidies throughout its lifetime to compete with renewables on price and they need to run constantly.
Renewables already push the energy price into the negatives during peak production, so what you really need is batteries that can smooth out energy prices over a day or bridge a day with bad energy production, as well as energy generation that is cheap to build and keep in reserve, like gas plants that can burn a hydrogen mix.
When it comes to the economics, all nuclear power plants do is drive up the price set by renewables. England may have need for some nuclear power plants to keep up their stockpile of nuclear weapons, but when it comes to energy generation, hydrogen-burning powerplants will fit the need of renewable energy production much better in tge future.
Saying nuclear is unfeasible because building new plants is too expensive and takes too long is like saying swimming is too hard; but then it turns out you insist on carrying a 100lb anchor whenever you get in the water.
The reason it's expensive and takes a long time is because of the absolutely massive amount of red tape built up over the years. Some red tape is obviously a good thing, but fear around the word "nuclear" has caused so many unnecessary regulations, committees, and testing that it causes plants to take 5x what they should cost and 10x the time.
Literally having to build safety mechanisms and procedures for failures that aren't even physically possible. All because the average person knows jack shit about nuclear power.
And who do you trust to cut down the red tape? The conservatives that promised to cut red tape through brexit? Only to increase it many-fold after they were confronted with the reality everyone warned them about, that completely divorcing from the EU single marketwould be ruinous for the UK, so they were forced to put in place a bunch of half-measures to still keep access to the EU.
And what red tape are we talking about? There must be a list of unecessary red tape. I'd like to see a public debate around what rules to cut, rather than trusting the next conservative promising to just get rid of all the bureaucracy.
You're not exactly wrong, nuclear is a terrible pairing with renewables for the reasons you listed, but it's still probably cheaper than batteries under extreme conditions, which is something we do have to deal with.
90% renewables is cheap, 99% is more expensive, 100% is really really expensive. Batteries are great for 24 hour storage, but storing energy for longer starts to become uneconomical and to hit 100% you have to buy enough capacity for the absolute worst case scenario. Anything that baseline nuclear cuts off from renewable demand is potentially cheaper than the theoretical worst case 1% of renewables (eg if there's no wind and it's cloudy mid-winter, how much solar/wind do you need to power the country, or how much battery do you need to maintain power for weeks under these conditions?).
Batteries are cheap and getting cheaper every day.
Solar + battery are already cheaper than every other option. Sodium batteries are getting close to lithium in energy density while using much cheaper materials that are easily attainable worldwide and they have almost zero chance of combustion.
That can all be true without contradicting what the comment above says.
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The funny thing is, every form of electricity production is better when coupled with batteries, even Nuclear. Because you can keep your power plants in the optimal production range.
That is exactly why I said that under current economic forces, building hydrogen-capable gas plants is the most cost-effective way of dealing with longer, but much rarer periods of low renewable energy output. They combine "low" standby costs and can be throttled within minutes.
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Opposing nuclear power plays into the hands of the fascists.
There's truth in this, but there is also a certain subset of internet users which obnoxiously gloss over all of the challenges and limitations of nuclear fission, pretending that it's a flawless energy source to the detriment of everyone's sanity
This was one or the few areas I didn’t align with the Green Party before, as I believe that a bit of nuclear is kind of necessary to help round out less consistent energy sources as things stand. I think this is a reasonable stance.
Not to be too much of a dick but this is pretty typical of the pro-new nuclear mindset.
You "believe"? You don't have to believe, there is plenty of hard data showing that new nuclear is a massive waste of money now renewables and storage are so cheap.
I think this is a reasonable stance.
It's not, unless you want to pay more for electricity for absolutely no reason other than because you feel like you should.
I might just be behind the times.
I look over at France, who have managed to keep their energy prices low and keep their independence thanks to their large amount of Nuclear energy, and I'm jealous.
Maybe we have fixed the energy storage issue now, and I'm just not aware of it. It's not my area of expertise.
I genuinely want us to have more renewables, but I was still under the impression that you needed a "base" energy source to round things out. I don't want that to be coal or gas, so nuclear seems like the lesser evil.
But if that's no longer an issue, then great!
nuclear is a massive waste of money now renewables and storage are so cheap.
And how cheap are renewables when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine?
Renewables and batteries are awesome and we need more. But they aren't suited to all weather in all countries at all times. The UK has periods where there is not enough wind or sun or battery storage to sustain demand. Nuclear is not my first choice but it is a practical choice that can be helpful.
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I'm simply anti-nuclear anything with the large scale variety of other renewable energy alternatives out there with far fewer long term concerns.
Pretty much the only sane comment in this thread.
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