A humble prediction. Seeds are being sown around the world for a comeback of nuclear energy. In the next decade, we can see government’s around the world approving more nuclear reactors as they realize they aren’t going anywhere near net carbon zero with wind and solar. 🧵

Take Australia for example. It is home to 1/3rd of the world’s uranium - the chemical element needed to produce nuclear energy in reactors but doesn’t have a single nuclear reactor to generate electricity.

Which is fine as long as you have other sources of energy that are cheap, plentiful and reliable. But South Australia’s energy prices are arguably the highest in the

The European Commission released a very important report this April. In its assessment, it concluded that nuclear energy had near to zero greenhouse gas emissions in energy generation phase and can be a contributor to climate mitigation

What about radioactive waste management? France which produces 75% of its energy requirements from nuclear is a great example.

Can marketing gimmicks and hysteria trump over physics and bad economics? It certainly can in India and many other countries. But let’s take India. Consider this: India’s total solar capacity is 40,000 MW. Excluding roof top & off grid, the ground mounted solar is 35,000 MW 🧵

This on-grid ground mounted capacity is spread over 210,000 acres or 850 square kms. For perspective, Mumbai’s land area is 650 square kms. 1.3x! If you fill the whole of Mumbai with solar panels plus an additional 30% of Mumbai, you get 35,000 MW - our current solar capacity

Now consider this. The unsung hero that is Nuclear. If you move all of India’s 22 reactors (7500 MW) to Mumbai, it will fit into just 1000 acres. 50% of Bandra.

So, this gigantic solar capacity must be producing insane amount of power for us right?

Units produced last year by our:
Solar - 50 billion units
Nuclear - 43 billion units

Greater Mumbai’s annual electricity requirement - 21 billion units!

Meaning 40% of India’s total solar capacity is enough for just one city. Solar needs 180x more land to produce 1 unit of power versus nuclear! This may not seem apples to apples because as a ‘hot’ country we need to exploit 300 days of sunshine isn’t it?