Nukes are the ultimate long lead item in energy, they wouldn't have banked on renewables doing so well (cost, capacity, firming).

The energy transition can be built with both. As China is doing.

Looks like China added more energy from solar this year than their entire nuclear capacity from last century generated though. So nuclear appears to be on the way out.

No, if you look at the graph posted above nuclear energy is clearly increasing production in China and significantly. They are set to produce more nuclear energy than the us does with solar.

Exactly , China isn’t phasing out nuclear, they’re scaling it up alongside everything else. That’s how you secure energy for the future.

You should learn about compound growth and how it's the relative rates that choose the winner.

The winner of what? What is being won here? The only thing that matters is producing energy with less fossil fuels.

the marketplace for energy. Nuclear has had its try and it was not able to displace fossil fuel. Solar can and is. Putting more money into nuclear is backing a dead horse.

Nuclear energy mostly didn't get a real try. If we had made less over all safety laws around it, it would likely eclipse Fossil fuel generation already. Nuclear energy has also had a bunch of recent advances. These plants don't solve the same problems. Nuclear has many advantages in some places.

Right , with modern designs, nuclear is safer, cleaner, and more advanced than ever. That’s why it keeps proving its value.

But you pointed out that nuclear did get a real try in China, and even there it's growing much slower than solar or wind. None of nuclear's advantages matter almost everywhere. The reality is the nuclear is a dead end technology and eventually every country that tries it gives up on it.

France is going relatively strong. Many many countries have never given nuclear a try because of non-proliferation policies in many places outside the west. Without the threat of nuclear weapons being created in new reactors this isn't a problem.

Not really: independentaustralia.net/politics/pol...

Calling nuclear “dead” ignores reality. It’s expanding worldwide, while grids with only wind and solar are already struggling.

it's mostly cuz nuclear energy would fucking trounce everything else we have and the people running things would lose a lotta money from such an improvement lmao

Wrong read , China is adding nuclear aggressively, because they know you can’t run a modern economy on solar alone.

Sure, China is building nuclear—but context matters. Nuclear is only a sliver of new capacity. 84% of new energy investment is solar + batteries. That’s where the real scaling is. China knows renewables + storage can run the whole grid—and they’re racing there, leaving legacy gen behind.

China has blown the cobwebs off old US research, made the investment and now can build Thorium, molten salt cooled reactors. It is a great green energy accomplishment, and they deserve the economic boost they will get. These reactors can even help consume old nuclear waste.

A reactor takes 20 years? to build. China is building 27 new reactors at the moment. The USA is building 2... And closing 27... Reopening 3...