I have very little patience for renewables advocates telling me that nuclear energy is too slow and expensive when the evidence does not support that. 
It’s a dismissive excuse for making aesthetic technology choices rather than engage in hard choices. This leaves me with the impression that they are not taking seriously the lack of progress to date, nor the major challenges ahead in decarbonising fuels & heat. #COP25Madrid
Here's another example of the chart showing how much clean energy can be added in 11 years, with source (Cao et. al Science 2016)
And here is a chart showing a sample of nuclear projects being delivered today - and the range of costs. First of a kind projects (as per recent experience in EU and US) are expensive, but not representative.
Our study shows that low cost, successful nuclear construction projects are entirely achievable - and indeed HAVE been achieved - in EU and US once set-up costs for FOAK have been invested, providing vital support in combination w RES in clean reliable affordable energy systems.
Europeans have delivered v cost competitively in the past - and will do again. Recent plants are expensive & slow because they are first-in-a-generation projects requiring huge investment to establish skills and capability, and to license & finalise & build FOAK design.
Renewables didn’t start out cheap either. Imagine how much progress we could make on rapid & deep decarbonisation if the same resources & efforts were applied to driving down cost & increasing deployment for ALL clean technologies as has been successfully achieved with renewables
@threadreaderapp unroll please
