> And nuclear is making a comeback: More than 12 GW of new reactors began construction in 2025
By the time they are ready they will have contributed so many carbon emissions, that they'll have to run for 25% of their expected life span to get them back. But by the time they are commissioned (~2036), solar + battery + solar-made hydrocarbons will have made them uneconomic, and solar would have made far fewer emissions.
Furthermore, they are big up front money sinks, creating a sunk investment, diminishing the gamma of future options one might have wished to invest in, or take advantage of, something nobody talks about. Investing in nuclear is like willingly tying a brick to your foot, severely limiting your investment options.
They are perfect for government vanity projects, though, where a lot of money can be siphoned off to personal crypto gardens, repeatedly. Money laundering is likely the leitmotiv behind why you see them being built.
Solar made hydrocarbons are never going to be economical.
Confident predictions of the inevitability of renewable diesel at $3 a liter don't add up because diesel is $3 a liter right now. I am literally paying that at the pump. I will actually happily pay more then that if the diesel were actually renewable, but instead it doesn't exist.
> Solar made hydrocarbons are never going to be economical.
"Predictions are hard, especially about the future".
Of course they are. We aren't going to be able to take hydrocarbons out of the ground forever.
You won't burn them in your truck, though. That's an almost certainty. But whatever use they still get when we end transitioning to solar will be met by synthetic hydrocarbons, there's no point on keeping the entire oil production and distribution industries when you can just make a bit of it near the point of use.
I expect in a post-fossil age we'll get organic chemical feedstocks from biomass, and non-biomass solar will help with that by providing hydrogen for hydrodeoxygenation. That will roughly double the hydrocarbons one can get from a given quantity of carbohydrate. Biomass here will also include waste stream organic matter.