[programmers frantically pulling cables out of the wall]
AI: "Nuclear power. Double teachers' salaries. Build more houses. Distribute food more fairly. TRAINS—"
— qntmyrrh (@qntm) November 24, 2023 I remember growing up with that same old adage of how you could be the next scientist to invent a cure for cancer, or a solution to climate change, or whatever. What they don’t tell you is that we already have solutions for a lot of problems, we just don’t use them.
Solar and wind are working power sources right now, like are several fission technologies. Nuclear fusion has never generated net power anywhere and has never gone out of the lab.
No one who promote nuclear energy right now is promoting nuclear fusion, it is a non-existent tech as of now.
[citation needed] The article was not showing that at all.
Here you go. It is fission alone in two year pairs and it still gets more funding then wind, solar, hydro and oceanic power combined.:
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/public-energy-r-and-d-and-demonstration-funding-in-selected-countries-by-technology-area-2000-2019
Quite frankly, I am interested in the actual answer. My gut feeling is that renewables received more R&D than nuclear fission but I would be happy to correct my misconception there. But the IEA numbers are really small. 1.3 billions for 2 years of nuclear R&D? France’s CEA, that oversees nuclear R&D (among other things, but mainly) has a 5 billions yearly budget.
R&D of the 21 top leading solar firms has exceeded the billion since 2017: https://www.actu-solaire.fr/a-10681-les-depenses-de-r-d-dans-le-photovoltaique-depuis-cinq-ans.html
The IEA numbers seem biased in that they just include a fistful of countries. They do not include China (that does a ton of solar R&D) and include France (one of the last to do nuclear research).
CEA also hosts ITER and France pays 40% of the costs for that. It might go throu CEA. I honestly do not know.