Nuclear seems like the best way to decarbonize places in high latitudes, where they have dark winters and few shores / rivers for hydro or wind. Canada, N Europe, N Asia, etc. I just don’t see how you’d make solar + batteries work at scale right now, esp for heat in the winter.
Ramez Naam
 @ramez
3 Jul 2019
Common sense view on nuclear, from @MLiebreich: 1. Keep existing reactors running as long as possible. 2. Acknowledge that nuclear industry is failing to build new reactors on time and on budget. 3. Aggressively fund nuclear innovation to get costs down. about.bnef.com/blog/liebreic…
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Hydro is great in mountainous rainy places like Norway or British Columbia. And some northern places also have plenty of wind. Agree nuclear is good for many of the rest, though.
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Enough to heat all homes, drive all cars and trucks, support industrial processes?
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Replying to @philikon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr… says hydropower is 98% of electricity in Norway. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr… says hydropower is 87% of electricity in British Columbia, and 59% for Canada. (There's a reason Canadians talk about paying the "hydro" bill.)

Jul 4, 2019 · 5:08 PM UTC

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Replying to @davidbaron @philikon
There should be a bunch of places new hydro power stations could be built to meet new demand from moving off fossil fuels, but not sure if there is political will for that today.
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That said, these are sparsely populated places.
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more replies
Replying to @davidbaron
Yeah! See my carve-out on shore / rivers. Norway, BC, WA + OR are poster children for hydro. They’ll have to add capacity for EVs and heat pumps, but wind can help with that. Hydro + wind are good where they work!
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Just not so sure about middle of the country. Would love to be proven wrong. Either way, massive investment needed.