Which fossil fuels are "less bad" for the climate? They're all very bad.
Obviously old coal powerplants are the worst, but there's more evidence every year that the allegedly "clean" natural gas is nowhere as clean as advertised once you account for fugitive methane emissions that in practice are largely untracked. And flooding the market with cheap fossil fuel like methane as a "transition fuel" – another marketing gimmick – will only delay the transition to renewables for obvious economic reasons.
I'm not optimistic about big shots like fusion, but small modular nuclear reactors for example could be operating relatively soon if only we had the desire to go in that direction.
> Obviously old coal powerplants are the worst, but there's more evidence every year that the allegedly "clean" natural gas is nowhere as clean as advertised once you account for fugitive methane emissions that in practice are largely untracked. And flooding the market with cheap fossil fuel like methane as a "transition fuel" – another marketing gimmick – will only delay the transition to renewables for obvious economic reasons.
None of this makes nuclear, and fusion in particular, necessary in order to avoid a "looming energy crisis"? That's what we're talking about. If we wanted to have better emission tracking and/or carbon capture for natural gas we could probably do it, I'd guess, and it's still not clear natural gas generation is required at all in the face of improving renewables and storage.
You know, what's not clear at all is that renewables will ever be cheaper than fossil fuels outside of a minority of markets. You're putting a lot of weight on that prediction but despite all the recent progress on costs, if that was going to happen anytime soon, climate change would largely solve itself. Wouldn't that be nice.
Small modular nuclear on the other hand could be economically feasible in places that don't have the money to pay extra for renewables but still want to drop their GHG emissions.
I'm not claiming that renewables have to completely replace fossil fuels (see my reference to carbon capture), or that they even need to be cheaper (fossil fuels could become artificially expensive by, eg, carbon taxes). I'm questioning the assertion that nuclear is essential, which is what was claimed by the comment I replied to.
Nuclear might be nice to have, might be better for various reasons, might be lots of things. But is it absolutely required "to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone"? That's my question.
>will only delay the transition to renewables for obvious economic reasons.
If you want more renewables then you need a more flexible grid. All that crappy coal baseload clogging the grid needs to disappear and make space for renewables. Gas plants are cheap to build but expensive to operate. They will be mostly used when there is a temporary shortfall of renewables. They are also necessary for power to gas if you actually want to reach 100% renewables.
Obviously old coal powerplants are the worst, but there's more evidence every year that the allegedly "clean" natural gas is nowhere as clean as advertised once you account for fugitive methane emissions that in practice are largely untracked. And flooding the market with cheap fossil fuel like methane as a "transition fuel" – another marketing gimmick – will only delay the transition to renewables for obvious economic reasons.
I'm not optimistic about big shots like fusion, but small modular nuclear reactors for example could be operating relatively soon if only we had the desire to go in that direction.