Weirdly, the Greens are the ones who are the most against nuclear power, even though it is pretty much the only solution in the mid-term for energy needs, especially if we are going to keep wanting to charge all of those electric cars. There is little point having "green" cars, if fossil fuels are burned to create the electricity for them.
I would guess that burning coal to generate the electricity to run a car would be worse than using gasoline (somebody not named me has surely crunched the numbers) but natural gas to electricity might be better, if still not green.
Nuclear energy may be green in that it doesn’t emit hydrocarbons, but if things go bad, they can go really bad. A lot of it’s about perceptions. Public acceptance of nuclear power may have improved in recent years but another Chernobyl could turn people off in a big way; just look how Japanese public opinion shifted after Fukushima.
And then there’s the problem of what to do with the waste. When I was a kid, a solution to that problem was just around the corner. It’s proven to be a mighty long corner.
Fast breeder, thorium reactors, and fusion might be widespread someday, but no time soon.
Right now though, there’s just not the infrastructure for widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Huge sums need to go into building it. And we probably need next-generation batteries with current lithium-based energy storage just a stopgap measure.
Natural gas is better I think. What has been interesting is that natural gas is common here for electricity production, and the storage tanks are full - yet the electricity prices are still up.
For sure - I am old enough to have a bit of Chernobyl in me too. At the same time, there is quite a difference between today and 1986 Ukraine. Fukushima was a bit of a freak event - bad design for sure though and that is always a risk.
It is all part of progress though and perhaps it is better to go "out with a bang" than wither slowly into oblivion.
Battery tech has a very long way to go still, but just imagine if development had continued for the last 100 years, instead of combustion engines taking hold.