Hasbeen - in line with your username - don't fall for past trends - try to anticipate new trends.

Try to feel the impact of the cost curve reductions moving forward. Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of power EVER and so allow overbuild - and yet they're still reaching new economies of scale, and are expected to drop another 70%. Overbuild to avoid winter storage as much as possible - and even with PHES they're still cheaper!

But I get it. Until June this year I was with you. I was for about a half nuclear, half renewable grid - and sceptical that 100% renewables could be a thing. But I never blinded myself to the data the way you have! Even I was prepared to admit the following. Stick this in your pipe and smoke it!

"The share of renewables in global electricity generation jumped to nearly 28% in Q1 2020 from 26% in Q1 2019. The increase in renewables came mainly at the cost of coal and gas, though those two sources still represent close to 60% of global electricity supply. In Q1 2020 variable renewables – in the form of solar PV and wind power – reached 9% of generation, up from 8% in Q1 2019."
http://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/renewables

The recent announcements from the State governments alone take us to 70% by 2030 - private rooftop solar will be more.

"These grand plans will have variable renewable energy (VRE, or wind and solar) output increasing by 15TWh per year in the 2029-2032 timeframe; more than double what we are achieving at present. Broadly speaking, about 31GW of wind and 10.5GW of utility solar will be installed." http://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-biggest-states-have-set-stunning-renewable-plans-now-we-need-a-national-strategy/#

Hi Max.

Here is another stat. Two trillion dollars spent on nuclear power produces twice as much energy per year as 2.3 trillion dollars spent on wind and solar. You keep claiming wind and solar to be the cheapest, yet real world statistics would suggest that your claims are false.

Hi Fester,

You make that claim, but where is a reference that would back it up?

Hi Paul. This article mentions it. I get put off by the glossy sales brochure approach of the renewable industry.

http://smallcaps.com.au/bill-introduced-remove-nuclear-energy-ban-australia/

You see Hasbeen,
you're going off old data! This is a paragraph about the past!

"Across the globe, nuclear power produces double the electricity than that of solar and wind, yet between 1965 and 2018, global investment on solar and wind has reached $2.3 trillion, compared to $2 trillion on nuclear."
http://smallcaps.com.au/bill-introduced-remove-nuclear-energy-ban-australia/

Learning rates, economies of scale, and technological improvement are ALL factors here. Tell us Hasbeen what was the cost per kwh of solar in 1980? 1990? 2000? 2010? 2020? 2022?

The following comes from Our World in Data from 2020 - not some right wing blogger.

"Fossil fuels dominate the global power supply because until very recently electricity from fossil fuels was the cheapest. This has changed dramatically. In most places power from new renewables is now cheaper than new fossil fuels....

...The fundamental driver of this change is that renewable energy technologies follow learning curves, which means that with each doubling of the cumulative installed capacity their price declines by the same fraction. The price of electricity from fossil fuel sources however does not follow learning curves so that we should expect that the price difference between expensive fossil fuels and cheap renewables will become even larger in the future."

http://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth

Learning curvess since 1970... from $115 per watt to cents per watt. And it's still got a way to go!
http://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-solar-pv-module-cost-by-data-source-1970-2020

Check this graphic out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#/media/File:3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png

Hi again Fester,

I read the link you provided, I misunderstood your post. The fact that nuclear is producing double the power of solar and wind is not dependent on the fact that between 1965 and 2018 more was invested in S & W. I would say much of the nuclear investment was earlier on and is now a well established means of production, where as S & W is more of a recent development and much of the investment is in R & D and not in actual production of commercial power where initial production costs would be very high.

As a GREEN member I'm not opposed to nuclear power, and I'm not rejecting it out of hand, but want a holistic approach where all factors are considered, not just the economic considerations, environmental as well.