If climate change is serious enough to require government intervention, the world should be looking at France, who has approved 6 new nuclear plants and has 8 more under consideration. Though its response is more to Russia's embargo of natural gas, not global warming.
Nuclear energy is the only reliable energy available using today's technology that can produce enough energy to support an advanced economy's energy needs at a reasonable cost, that is not carbon dependent.
Today's nuclear technologies are about as similar to those of the 1970s, when most of today's nuclear plants were builit (including Three-Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chenobyl were built) as today's computers are to those that were in place in the 1970s. Yet little has been done to change the impression of people regarding nuclear energy.
Renewable green energy technologies are not yet ready for the main stage. I am not against Green Energy, it is wonderful in the right situation (like on my single residence rooftop) . I have 32 solar panels that power my two EVs and home. But I live in southern California where the sun almost always shines and when my solar panels can't keep up, I can tap into the reliable fossil fuel generated energy on the grid when it is convienent.
Meanwhile, the only reason the cost of my solar is "very competitive" to utility produced coal sourced electricity is that I avoid the "distribution costs" associated with the grid and the brutal taxes attached to gasoline.
The actual electricity my solar panels produce costs almost 6 times more than coal produced electricity, but electric bills are mostly utility distribution costs not energy production costs and so I actually save money producing electricity at 6 times the cost of coal. But imagine what would happen if you layered solar electricity costs on top of today's grid costs? I great number of Americans and world citizens struggling to stay above the poverty line would quickly sink below it.
Perhaps some day, the cost equation will change, but not yet. So it appears that much of the world's energy policies are being driven, not be climate, but by environmentalists, since reducing CO2 emissions almost seem secondary to achieving "green renewable energy". This smacks of elitism and academia, since no compassionate person would force "green energy" on the planet when a far cheaper source of far more reliable energy is available. Unlike "green energy", nuclear power won't have the effect that green energy will have and push huge numbers of people into poverty.
The recent government collapse in Sri Lanka, highlights what happens when you ignore the basic needs of people to have cheap energy and cheap food (which for now remains dependent on natural gas based nitrogen fertilizer). Several other governments are teetering as result of "green energy" policies pushed on them as a condition of foreign aid. They are between a "rock" and " hard place" and starvation is knocking on the doors of their people.
Sadly, the "green energy" urgency is somewhat fueled by "fake science". Much of what has been attributable to "climate change" is more accurately referred to as "weather" change. Weather changes all the time and follows a number of long cycles that appear to be climate change, only to reverse themselves as the cycles reverse. Whether change also occurs as a result of population density changes, which are not directly related to climate or CO2.
I am not suggesting that the planet is not warming as greater amounts of CO2 accumulate in the air, just not as dramatically as researchers seeking government funding claim.
That said, fossil fuels are not unlimited and the fact that the atmosphere has more CO2 than before suggests we are consuming fossil fuels faster than the planet can restore them. That presents multiple issues unrelated to climate change.
So, it is time to look at nuclear energy once again as the "bridging" fuel for the next century as we figure out how to produce and store "green energy" cheaply, so it can take its place as a core energy source to power human civilization. Ultimately, "green energy" should explore how to "store" sunlight as "carbon fuel", so it can be used where "carbon fuel" represents a better energy storage option than batteries. Another way to think of it is "carbon fuel" is "nature's battery system".
Time to put the engineers to work and get the politicians out, so we can focus on real solutions.
