I don't appreciate the insult, but I agree with the science-argument.
I don't mean it as an insult, I am just genuinely disgusted in the general population (of the world) when it comes to this issue. People are ignorant and foolish. I'm not surprised by the results and I don't think people really evaluate things rationally when it comes to nuclear.
No matter what arguments either campaign may have made. It will always be literally THERMONUCLEAR HOLOCAUST/CHERNOBYL/FUKUSHIMA against happiness and light. You can't credibly argue the public at large does not evaluate this in any other way.
Fusion reactors aren't ready for prime time yet.
Gen III+ reactors aren't as easy to build as made out to be. Westinghouse House literally went bankrupt over this exact thing.
MSR reactors are great in theory, but they aren't primetime ready. You aren't gonna get an MSR reactor up and running before 2025, and it's probably more like 2030.
I'm not against nuclear in theory, but Switzerland seems to have waited too long. They needed to start on replacing reactors BEFORE they got aging due to the time it takes to build new ones.
The real question that has to be answered not just in Switzerland but around the globe is do we start building more Gen III+ reactors now with a slow transition to Gen IV or do we bank on renewables catching up to nuclear in the next decade considering how long it takes to spin up a nuclear power plant so to speak.
To be fair to the Swiss their energy decisions make absolutely zero difference and they have no local specialisation in plant design and construction. This decision in particular almost certainly guarantees they will be importing electricity from France down the line at higher and higher levels because renewables will never keep up with energy demand.
The nuclear industry being in the state it's in is a political issue more than anything. Personally I think it is imperative that all nuclear plants should be government owned and government run. This will eliminate the liabilities to a very large extent, which are paper costs that require insurance.
DEMO is a while away and I'm skeptical it will make the 2040 date. MSR's being ready for primetime have the same issue that DEMO will have - materials science - can the inner walls cope with the neutron flux in an economical manner. This is not a question of physics, it's a question of engineering, as was the mantra in the Manhattan Project, that means this problem is a trivial undertaking in the grand scheme of things.
I guess you can tell me the solution to the storing of nuclear waste then. Also why a country should pour fucktons of money into plants that take years to be built, when renewables are getting ever cheaper.
Just shutting off nuclear plants is senseless, but I don't see the problem with slowly phasing them out as renewables are taking their place.
Renewables will never be able to meet energy demand. It's basic physics. They will never achieve the same power output and will require far more space. Nuclear is the future, it'll have to be accepted but the political will needs to be there to do it.
The waste problem is also one of the most overblown issues out there, Gen IV reactors will literally eat the waste. The amount of waste produced is also miniscule. Nuclear is a complicated subject with many different facets but there is zero doubt that it is the only solution to climate change and world energy demand.
The calculation is simple - as the developing world matures economically they will consume orders of magnitude more energy than they do today. The only source capable of meeting that demand and sustaining future growth is nuclear and it will do it being emission free. Renewables are not going to cut it because energy consumption is going up not down.