"Renewable energy sources – solar and wind – can’t be the basis for a resilient, reliable and affordable electric system, which is necessary for a modern economy.
Both solar and wind are intermittent. Industries can’t plan production if electric power depends on the weather.
Blackouts are unavoidable with solar and wind because the wind can stop blowing strongly, sometimes for weeks, and the sun sets daily and may be blocked by clouds for many days consecutively. Massive storage to date cannot fill in for more than a few hours at anything like an acceptable cost. Blackouts can cost electric customers their lives.
First, as the U.S. has shown, replacing coal-fired generation with natural gas reduces emissions significantly. But the next step is clearly nuclear power, the major electric generating technology that is scalable, independent of the weather and GHG-free. The next generation of nukes is likely to power the future (perhaps along with nuclear fusion), but even the current generation should be considered for development.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t shutter still serviceable nuclear power plants as they’re doing in Germany (and have done in New York State). That’s a way to increase GHG emissions, not reduce them."
Simple, unvarnished truth.