this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Profit is not really the way to ascribe value to a method of power production. Otherwise continuing the use of fossil fuels would be the "best" course of action.
"Sure we destroyed the planet as we knew it, but for a brief moment in time, we increased value for shareholders!"
"Research shows slavery is more profitable than paid labour in the cotton industry"
Uhhh...... So?
It's not even how denialist politicians value it. Who is getting those profits is just as important to them as the size of those profits.
In this case the price is a reflection of the resources required to generate power, it also represents how much of something we can do - establishing solar panel factories and putting up solar farms is something we can do with less resources in a shorter amount of time.
Given that most countries have a capitalistic, private energy sector, profit may not be the best metric but it's the only one that matters.
The nuclear bros never seem to understand this though. If nuclear energy made any sense from a financial standpoint, we'd be building a ton of reactors but it doesn't. With renewables and storage getting cheaper and new nuclear getting even more expensive, we're not going to see much more new nuclear.
What do is your solution to baseline power generation?
It's base load, not baseline and it's arguable that it's not necessary: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/28/we-dont-need-base-load-power/
Large scale energy storage isn't there yet (afaik, please link otherwise), and adjusting demand with scalable hydrogen production isn't there either. Meanwhile, France's nuclear plants can adjust their output by 900MW in 30 minutes to mitigate increased demand or reduced supply due to weather.
Did you read the article?