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Another magazine cover story saying we're on our way to 100% carbon-free electricity thanks to solar and wind, with scarcely a word about nuclear. macleans.ca/news/canada/ye… A few facts to consider the next time someone says we just need more solar panels and wind turbines. Thread.
After 20 years of massive advances, powered by gargantuan investments -- some $3 trillion -- wind and solar combined produce a grand total of ... 7% of the world's electricity.
A little deflating, isn't it? But at least it's progress, right? Sort of. But remember, the goal is to drive down carbon emissions. And thanks to the neglect of nuclear power, and its steady decline, the gains from more solar and wind were *entirely offset* by declining nuclear.
And just to give you a better sense of how crazy it is to talk about climate change without mentioning nuclear, consider a few facts. One, over the last 50 years, nuclear power provided HALF of all low-carbon electricity in advanced economies. Without nuclear power, Japan's ...
...emissions would have been 25% higher, South Korea's would have been 45% higher, and Canada's ... would have been 50% higher!
But, hey, more solar panels, stat! Right?! Well, you know that huge increase in wind and solar over the last 20 years? If nuclear is allowed to continue its decline, we'll need five times more than that ... just to offset that decline -- that is, just to maintain the status quo.
Most of the foregoing is from an indispensable new report by the International Energy Agency: webstore.iea.org/download/direc… I'll finish my little tirade by sharing a few charts I've never seen in any newspaper or magazine.
Look at this chart. Then tell me why almost every bloody story about reducing carbon emissions goes on and on about wind and solar but hardly mentions nuclear power, let alone the danger its decline poses to the fight against climate change or the promise of new nuclear tech. 
Nuclear power says, "you're welcome."
"Hello?!" says nuclear power. "You're welcome! You're WELCOME, dammit!"
