Cellos88GT
Well-Known Member
While I am not sure that Germany's exit from nuclear energy was the right tradeoff between long-term waste problem and cost on the one hand and having short-term zero emission energy to combat climate change on the other hand, your view of nuclear is not realistic as well I believe.
The reason we are not "transitioning to breeder reactors" is that these make a technology that is already prohibitively expensive even more expensive, so even with government subsidies it's not viable.
While nuclear may be a short-term solution to climate change, it is by no means a free or even cheap source of energy and anyone who thinks so obviously has no grasp of economics.
It's expensive now but will it always be expensive in the future? Russia is already operating two fast breeder reactors and China is right behind them. I'm going to guess western technology for breeder reactors is more expensive due to overregulation rather than due to a lack of technical knowledge and expertise.
Nuclear is not the end-all-be-all solution but it should be part of the landscape combined with renewables. A 100% renewable grid is not consistent when it comes to pricing and their inherently low-inertia nature does not offer any kind of robustness.
Finally, Nord Stream 2 is starting to look awfully sketch in light of recent Russian movements against Ukraine.