Bill Gates on 60 Minutes just now.

[NNadir]

15. Nuclear power was stopped cold from growing around 1990.

It did so by appeals to fear and ignorance.

Despite these appeals it has consistently produced about 28 examples of primary energy for more than 30 years using basically 1960s and 1970s technology.

We have just experienced half a century of wild cheering for solar and wind energy. This result was obtained without ever considering why humanity abandoned so called renewable energy beginning in the 19th century.

Jim Hansen calculated in 2013 that at that time, 8 years ago, that nuclear power had prevented 31 billion tons of CO2 emissions, which was equivalent to about a year's worth then. It's much worse now.

After half a century of cheering for wind and solar energy, hoopla about batteries produced on the back of the third world, vast lanthanide mines, steel and aluminum and diesel trucks to haul all this shit into wilderness areas, when has ever the magic solar and wind industry combined produced even 20 exajoules of the 600 exajoules of energy we now consume in a single year?

Of course in 1800 so called renewable energy provided all of humanity's energy needs. Of course, back then, most of humanity, even more so than today, lived short miserable lives of dire poverty despite having less than 1/7th modern population.

I'm very sorry however that I'm not a reactionary. I consider myself progressive in my own way.

The "failure" of nuclear energy to have prevented climate change and hundreds of millions of air pollution deaths since 1990 is not technical. It is social and political.

Engineering does not drive politics. In most cases political decisions drive engineering, for good and for bad.

Humanity made a stupid decision in the period between 1990 and 2000. We are living with the consequences.