A New Oil Shock Accelerates a Return to Nuclear Power

4/7/2026 at 11:40:39 AM

Prices of battery will continue to fall, while research for battery & storage is still a tiny fraction of all (implicit) subsidies for fossil fuel "research & processing" and its whole ecosystem:

Imagine only a smart part of the fraction to pay oil companies, to build the streets, all the profs at university for "ICE related" tech from the last 60 years, all the educated engineers, all the lobby institutions etc - and pour this into EE & battery research -> where could we be today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

If we would have invested a small part, the world would be quite different! (and this world, Iran war wont happen these days)

by KellyCriterion

4/7/2026 at 11:53:13 AM

> magine only a smart part of the fraction to pay oil companies, to build the streets, all the profs at university for "ICE related" tech from the last 60 years, all the educated engineers, all the lobby institutions etc - and pour this into EE & battery research -> where could we be today?

There is a more straightforward counterfactual. If the hippies had just sat the fuck down and the developed countries had nuclearized their grid the way France did, CO2 emissions would be so much lower that we could afford to have the entire developing world increase its CO2 emissions up to the French level while remaining within the same total global emissions level as today. And we would have had a huge runway for further decarbonizing our economies because we could have done all that by the 1980s like France did.

by rayiner

4/7/2026 at 2:33:49 PM

Even then nuclear would be behind renewables etc. - costs of renewables are aleady falling exponentially, and this under this "underfunded research regime"

I can remember one guy in the small village I grew up: He put solar on his roof already in 1991 - the people where laughing at him. (and back then you got nice state subsidies to do so). Today its a nobrainer - so for me its clear: It depends on the mindset of the society if those things are funded or not

by KellyCriterion

4/7/2026 at 9:24:53 PM

> Even then nuclear would be behind renewables etc. - costs of renewables are aleady falling exponentially, and this under this "underfunded research regime" I can remember one guy in the small village I grew up: He put solar on his roof already in 1991

By 1991, France already generated nearly 80% of its electricity from nuclear. Pointing to the falling cost of solar today overlooks the fact that nuclear would have allowed a massive decarbonization of the developed world two generations ago. France couldn't have done that with solar back then. The current feasibility of solar and wind is the result of fundamental scientific advances in semiconductors and batteries that didn't happen until the early 2000s.

Remember, CO2 is a cumulative problem. Massive CO2 emissions reductions from solar/wind in 2026 are a lot less valuable than the massive CO2 emissions reductions we could have had using nuclear 40-50 years ago.

by rayiner

4/7/2026 at 9:13:35 AM

Glad to see this crisis can result into a power plant 15-20 years from now.

Or another Gigawatt solar + batteries this year.

by notTooFarGone

4/7/2026 at 10:14:10 AM

France installed 56 reactors in 15 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messme...

But it takes a real energy supply crisis (and probably many resulting deaths) to overcome NIMBY and anti-nuclear sentiment. In the current situation: in the U.S. there is currently just minor price hike, in Asia there is potential for real crisis (in few months), in Africa it will be really bad (crop production failures - famine).

by leonidasrup

4/7/2026 at 6:09:56 PM

Correct. any nuclear power plant would take forever to build, and be to late to help. Meanwhile electric cars are here *now*, and solar + wind + batteries are not only much faster to implement, but also cheaper. Nuclear is to little, to late.

by tifkap

4/7/2026 at 11:33:08 AM

The Dem platform could include 80% rebates for balcony solar. That'd put a dent in grid consumption stats.

by euroderf

4/7/2026 at 10:52:18 AM

Either or both would be a great improvement over burning more coal.

by ForHackernews

4/7/2026 at 10:25:51 AM

I've been hearing "nuclear should have been done 15-20 years ago" for 30 years at this point. Coal was dead 20 years ago killed by solar and wind too, turns out that we'll be lucky if we have passed peak coal today! And peak carbon is still a fever dream.

No, it's time for the anti-nuclear crowd to sit things out from now on. They've been continuously wrong for the past 50 years, the world should never have listened to any of them.

by stinkbeetle

4/7/2026 at 1:51:59 PM

Nuclear is too expensive in ways that are effectively fixed costs. Solar is the cheapest form of power available on the market. I agree that we should have pushed nuclear 50, 40, 30, and 20 years ago, but now you’re asking the American people to pay more because something was the right call in the 90’s.

by Starman_Jones

4/7/2026 at 7:21:14 PM

Yes yes that was exactly the same thing said 20, 30, and probably 40 and 50 years ago too. Was wrong then too.

by stinkbeetle

4/7/2026 at 8:54:06 PM

No, it wasn’t. In 2008, I went to a lecture by a professor researching better PV cells, and it was, “here’s the benchmarks solar needs to beat to be cost competitive with nuclear, let alone oil or natural gas. As you can see, we’re nowhere close, but here’s what concepts we think can get us there.”

Meanwhile, nuclear’s appeal is that it can scale incredibly well. It’s not cost competitive with oil or gas, and certainly not with solar, but it can put out a ton of energy. With the sudden need for more and more data centers, there’s now a market for that. But solar is cheaper, safer, and is ready to go now.

by Starman_Jones

4/7/2026 at 11:15:38 PM

Yes it was. I didn't say everybody said that, but the anti-nuclear / pro-carbon luddites sure did.

by stinkbeetle

4/7/2026 at 7:54:29 AM

Nuclear, Hydro and Solar. The idea of "clean coal" is one of the strangest bits of energy propaganda I've ever heard from a US president.

by ksaj

4/7/2026 at 9:13:26 AM

Not happening, solar, batteries, wind, geothermal, and other renewables have a lead that cant be taken with wild hype and mumble logic. Hard work, and lots of it is the only hope for an American renaissance.

by metalman

4/7/2026 at 9:19:38 AM

Batteries are improving but are there yet, for country-scale use.

by Saline9515