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this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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Of course we can. Also, building new nuclear plants actually takes the decades you claim solar would take. Not a very good stop gap if it won't be done before the gap you want to stop has stopped by itself now, is it?
Six to eight years isn't decades, gross to just spout misinformation like that to try to prove a point. It will almost certainly take 30-40 years to get most of the planet on solar. That's roughly 24-34 years of providing a stop gap and it doesn't touch on needing to store and transfer solar since it can't be collected at night after solar is the primary power source.
What reactor is operational in 6 to 8 years? Can you point to a recent project that went online in that timeframe? Would be interesting how much nuclear capacity cost in comparison to reweables like solar wind or hydro and long range distribution nets or batteries.
This might serve as source for those 6-8 years. It seems more like a global/historical number as the author also notes that there isn't much recent data for the US or Europe.
Terrapower just broke ground on a new reactor in the US, it's expected to be completed in approx 6 years. Even with significant delays it would be under 8 years and almost certainly under a decade.
While not touching on cost, this link shows how much more power generation you can get with nuclear compared to other sources of low carbon energy over a decade of deployment. If you need to generate a lot of energy relatively quickly and don't have amazing hydro options, nuclear appears the most scalable.
https://scienceforsustainability.org/wiki/How_quickly_can_we_build_clean_energy%3F
I agree. It's really
So here's an example
How many solar panels or wind turbines and batteries can you put on an empty field in 13 years?
That's one reactor btw. Companies that can build those don't grow on trees. If the entire world tried to use nuclear to replace fossil fuels these times would skyrocket.
Anyway, I did not even say that every single reactor takes decades, just that the required amount for the stopgap you propose would.
Now you cherry pick a single example to try and justify your previous statement, that's weak. That would be like me trying to prove my point with one of the mini plants built in 3.5 years when I know the average is at least double that. Also your second statement is incorrect. If there's suddenly demand for nuclear the amount of companies building plants would rise to match demand and existing outfits will scale their operations, just like the rise of solar companies in the past decades.
And of course if we build hundreds of reactors it'll take decades, but until solar meets all our needs it's choosing between lesser evils. We didn't suddenly stop building all the coal plants because solar exists. Nope, in fact China is still breaking ground on new plants and plans to, until renewables meet all their needs. They are the ones extracting the minerals and building the panels and they know they need a stop gap.
You keep acting like it's nuclear vs solar but it's really nuclear vs coal. Humanity is going to keep building non renewable power plants for at least another thirty years, I would prefer them to be nuclear instead of coal.