First, many of the materials used for batteries and renewables can be recycled and used again and again and again. As opposed to coal and other fossil fuels that leave equally enormous scars .

And "fusion"? Well, Helion and other people are working on it but as the old joke goes, fusion has been just around the corner for the past 50 years or so.

Sorry, but from my perspective many of the people who keep promoting nuclear want us to stop building out renewables... which conveniently maintains the coal and oil and gas status quo for decades.

And the main thing that keeps us from building more is that we can't deliver on the promise.

Vogtle 3 & 4 were seven years late and $17 billion over budget (current estimates costing $35B).

Currently, nuclear provides 19% of the electricity in the US, from 54 plants running 98 power reactors. Not bad.

But to replace coal alone (14%) would require 71 new reactors in the US. Replace gas fired plants and we'd need to add an additional 206 new reactors to the mix.

Can you see utilities across the US building 130+ new plants and 277 new nukes? At $17B a pop and taking a decade or more each? That's $4.7T, btw.

(Probably would need about 20% more, btw, since average nuke uptime is around 92%, better than coal and gas. That's 332.)

Manage to build 10 a year and with those numbers the US--alone--won't reach fossil fuel phaseout until 2091 at best.

You're probably going to argue that it could be done in less time and for less money... but we certainly haven't demonstrated that capability, have we?

If you had sites and permitting... which we don't. And a standardized design... which we don't. And a support industry capable of building the steel and pipes and suppling concrete and all of other components required in the quantities needed... which we don't. And enough knowledgeable engineers and workers and so on for construction and operation... which we don't.

But if we did... then you might eventually be able to hit a seven year stride... after building out a bare handful at first that will only begin to come online decade or more from now.

And not making a dent in the environment until that point.

And at ruinous costs and with energy prices still much, much greater than that of renewables.

It. Is. Not. An. Option.

And you know it.