Because for power creation there are alternatives, but for healthcare there aren't. Renewables are cheap now and they also solve the sovereignty issue. Ideally we could use land currently dedicated to energy crops to install solar panels that operate at a significantly higher efficiency.
Many countries do not have the raw materials to build solar, wind turbines, and batteries so it doesn't solve the sovereignty issue.
That's like saying oil-producing countries aren't sovereign unless they also manufacture oil drills and pumps and pipes and tanks.
The sun is an oil well. Panels are drills or pumps. Batteries are oil tanks.
Not having oil drill and oil tank factories in your country isn't a critical energy sovereignty issue.
They don't need to make things themselves, they just need to have the capability to make it themselves to be sovereign.
If you get cut off from global oil trade while having oil in the ground but no ability to make drills, what use is the oil? If you want sovereignty then it is critical to have the ability to make drills, tankers, etc in your country if you rely on oil.
This is no different than solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, etc when it comes to renewables. If you don't care about sovereignty then great, you are good to go. If you do, then you need to be able to handle everything yourself otherwise you are always going to be reliant on other countries.
Once you have a solar panel you can't be cut off from using it. It's not like oil where you need regular deliveries forever.
Sure, but when your existing ones break or you need more you can have issues.
> when your existing ones break
They last 25 years. Enough time to spin up domestic manufacturing if you're really paranoid.
> or you need more
Lots of countries manufacture them today.
I'm not talking about manufacturing. I am talking about raw materials for chips, battery cells, etc. You can't be sovereign if you have the capability to build something but don't have the resources to build it
If your electricity usage isn't growing like crazy, existing batteries can simply be recycled to make new ones.
What chips are you talking about?
Again, by your definition, almost no country is "sovereign" for anything. Not fossil fuels, not PV and renewables, and certainly not nuclear. It's an impossible standard but only renewables get held to it.
> What chips are you talking about?
Electronic chips in wind turbines, hydro stations, etc.. Believe it or not but all of these use chips...
> Again, by your definition, almost no country is "sovereign" for anything. Not fossil fuels, not PV and renewables, and certainly not nuclear. It's an impossible standard but only renewables get held to it.
I am not holding renewables to it. The person I was responding to made the erroneous claim that you would be sovereign with renewables. "Renewables are cheap now and they also solve the sovereignty issue." I am just pointing out that most countries wouldn't actually have sovereignty and would still be reliant on other countries.
I am the one holding the consistent standard since I believe most countries wouldn't be sovereign regardless of them using fossil fuels, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.
An awful lot more countries in the world have the potential to sovereign manufacture relatively simple renewables than the massive engineering in reactors
I am not talking about manufacturing but the resources necessary to build them.
But they have the resources to build nuke plants?
I don’t understand the point