Not at all. Nobody has really put forth "too cheap to meter" as a rationale for nuclear for 50 years or more.
The issue is that nuclear is currently the only reliable base load generation technology that doesn't produce carbon (except perhaps hydro for reasonable definitions of "reliable"). The other top technologies either produce carbon (natural gas and coal) or are unreliable (solar and wind).
I actually don't believe nuclear is "the future" because I think renewables + battery storage will be more economical going forward and less politically dicey. But France is currently the envy of the world for their energy generation save for some countries with unique environments that allow for a lot of carbon-free generation (e.g. Norway with hydro and Iceland with geothermal).
Beyond that, leaving out storage costs, what are the technologies that can cover the world's storage? And in what quantities?
Because if I think of lithium, wouldn't it be an environmental disaster to extract and recycle all the materials involved?
In general, I don't understand why basically nuclear is to be replaced.
It's been true for 50 years, assuming it will be true for another decade or two is not wishful thinking.
> Beyond that, leaving out storage costs, what are the technologies that can cover the world's storage? And in what quantities?
Batteries for short term storage and pumped hydro for long term storage.
> Because if I think of lithium, wouldn't it be an environmental disaster to extract and recycle all the materials involved?
No.
> In general, I don't understand why basically nuclear is to be replaced.
It's inevitable that the cheapest solution will win. Not the best, but the cheapest.
Well it's one thing though to use the storage for a cell phones and some cars, another to keep all the industries and homes going on.
Do you have any data about what you claim?
For example in italy of hydro, nothing has been built for decades, everything that could be used has been used. If we want to go further, it's necessary to destroy valleys.
Your arguments do not go beyond whishful thinking... At least you need some data.
Not really. If all vehicles on the road where 100% PEV’s your looking at ~250 TWh in batteries. 1/5 of that would be ~50TWh.
Global electricity demand is about 70 TWh per day. You don’t need 70 TWh worth of storage if daily production is > daily demand. It all comes down to which is cheaper, extra storage or extra generating capacity. However ~25 TWh of storage is likely sufficient for a grid equally stable as what we have today. (100% EV’s would increase that 70TWh/day but that’s offset by charging them when power is cheap.)
If we find out in a few decades that the price of solar, batteries or renewables is no longer going down (and the reasons could be many, like a war, or a plateau in penetration), it could be enough to ruin those expectations. And discover that putting all our hopes in a single event could be our downfall.
Besides, even if daily storage is feasible, with current trends, we're still a long way from seasonal storage...
That's my opinion, which is why I think it's necessary to invest and believe in all technologies, without looking for the one we like the most or looks the most promising, since it leads to big bias and overestimation.
We don’t need the price of solar or batteries to keep falling, or for large exponential growth to occur. Simply maintaining the current rate of solar energy installs over the next 25 years would result in a renewable heavy grid.
China is currently on pace to install ~300 GW of solar power in 2024 assuming they continue that for 25 years and give a minimal 15% capacity factor that’s already at 100% of their current electricity consumption before those panels hit end of life. Granted, demand would increase over that time period but keeping up with demand doesn’t require crazy exponential growth here.
Grid batteries are in a similar situation, companies aren’t installing them at scale because they don’t need to but there’s plenty of excess battery manufacturing capacity right now to fill the need as it shows up. Basically at current rate of renewable installs there becomes an economic incentive to slowly ramp up grid batteries.