The only comment I'll make on the controversy related to nuclear vs. other methods is that you're (both of you) trying to inject logic into a situation where it has no effect. People see visible events like Fukashima and Three Mile Island and it scares them.
Indeed. I was shocked when the Japanese government made permanent what should have been a temporary evacuation of most of the Fukushima Exclusion Zone. Doubly shocked considering how crowded the settled parts of Japan are, and how valuable all that real estate is.
From what I've read -- I'm not an expert, but I've read several in-depth articles and some arguments on the subject -- about 85% of the Exclusion Zone has a background radiation level no more than twice that of what's normal in most areas. By comparison, Denver, Colorado also has about twice the normal background radiation level. Due to its nearly mile-high altitude, the air above the city is thinner, which blocks less of the radiation coming from outer space. However, the Denver area is certainly not noted for having a higher than normal cancer rate. In fact, it's a bit
lower than the average, for some reason I haven't seen explained.
But you're right. It's politically impossible for any politician to advocate a new generation of nuclear power plants. I'd love to see something like NuScale's small modular nuclear reactors deployed in areas where new power plants are needed; nuclear reactors designed and built to be truly fail-safe, in a way that existing nuclear reactors are not. We'll be needing a lot of new power plants in the coming years, as the EV revolution progresses and demand for industrial levels of electricity at ultra-fast charging stations becomes commonplace.
As I said in an earlier post, regarding nuclear power: If humans were a rational species... but we're not.
Alternatively, we should have a Manhattan Project level of commitment to developing grid-scale storage battery systems, to make solar power (and to a more limited extent, wind power) more practical. Trying to use batteries designed for BEVs is much too expensive for large-scale installations, and altho prices are dropping fairly rapidly, I don't see them getting down to the dirt-cheap level we'd need for large-scale energy storage. The episode of PBS's "Nova" series entitled "Search for the Super Battery" had a segment on "dirt batteries", very cheap but very large, heavy batteries; that sort of tech might be ideal for large scale grid storage.
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