Thread by @BobKerns

@aria606 @MichaelEMann Well, besides not working everywhere, they are both very slow investments, very large capital costs, and both produce a lot of opposition due to their specific environmental impacts. We can't rely on them to solve the problem,.

But progress on ANY of the fronts gets us closer.

@aria606 @MichaelEMann Wind, solar, and batteries are already well established even if they are still in the early stages, because of their economic and deployment advantages. They're where we are making the fastest progress.

But we are also adding hydro globally, for example in China and Canada.

@aria606 @MichaelEMann Nuclear is more complex and it's hard to make projections. We can expect it to continue to decline in the US and Europe, and grow in China and India. Newer designs improve construction time, but that is still 5 years and doesn't include planning, financing, licensing.

@aria606 @MichaelEMann Thorim molten salt reactors are widely touted as a solution—but contrary to perceptions, they don't exist today. Two early prototypes were built in the '60s. There's at least a decade of development ahead before we see significant deployment of any Gen IV reactor design.

@aria606 @MichaelEMann So that leads me to be very pessimistic about nuclear helping very much.
California will soon retire our last nuclear plant, and will only have imported nuclear power from Palos Verdes.

So if not nuclear—then more of everything else.

@aria606 @MichaelEMann Let me add that one source of confusion on throium MSR's is that there ARE some thorium reactors in operation, but they are NOT MSR's. And MSRs are possible with uranium.