by Fake Labubu
(unlicensed forest resident & part-time energy realist)
It’s 41°C and rising. The leaves have stopped rustling. Even the cicadas are too exhausted to scream. Somewhere deep in the trees, I, Fake Labubu, am lying belly-down on a stone that was cold this morning, but now feels like a stovetop. I used to love this time of year. Berry season. Hammock weather. But now the berries are shriveled, the hammocks are on fire, and the only thing growing fast is the smell of toasted moss.
And it’s not just me. In Delhi, birds are falling from the sky. In Phoenix, planes are grounded because the tarmac melts. In Tokyo, ambulances are running nonstop for heatstroke calls. This isn’t a heatwave, it’s a global fever.
You humans keep calling this a “hot summer,” as if it’s temporary. A blip. A bad week. But I’ve been watching, and it’s clear now: this isn’t the wave. It’s the tide. It’s the new normal curling in at the edges of your carefully maintained lives, and you’re still talking about “scaling solar” like it’s the cure for planetary sunstroke.
Let me say something unpopular: solar panels and wind turbines are not going to save you. Not alone. I know that sounds blasphemous in polite, planet-loving circles. Trust me, I like wind. I adore the sun. I bathe in it. I dance in it. But you’ve built your climate hopes on something beautiful and incomplete.
This is what I call the Renewable Wall. And you’ve hit it.
At first, renewables feel magical. Free energy from nature! No emissions! No oil! But the physics always catches up. The sun sets. The wind dies. And your factories, hospitals, water treatment plants, and server farms don’t care about aesthetics; they need power all the time. Not when the weather cooperates, but always. That’s what civilization runs on: relentless, baseload electricity.
Some say, “That’s why we have batteries!” Sure. Store the sunshine! Store the wind! But here’s the part most people don’t like to say out loud: we cannot scale batteries fast enough or big enough to replace fossil fuels entirely. Not yet, and maybe not ever at the level needed. To back up the world’s power grid for just 12 hours, you’d need hundreds of millions of tons of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite. The mining alone would create an ecological wound deeper than the one you’re trying to heal. Entire mountain ranges torn open. Rivers poisoned. Indigenous lands scarred.
And then there’s space. You want to run New York City on wind? You’ll need a wind farm the size of Connecticut. Want to power Tokyo with solar? Better start flattening out Chiba and turning rice paddies into glass. I know, I know you’ve seen those cute animations of panels on rooftops and offshore turbines twirling like ballerinas. But scale breaks the illusion. Scale turns elegance into consumption. And you’re running out of things to consume.
That’s the wall.
The thing is, you already have the answer. But you’re afraid of it.
It’s nuclear.
Yeah, I said it. That word still makes people flinch, like I just dropped a wasp nest into their kombucha. But here’s the truth, which I find strange to be telling you, since I’m a mythical rodent-creature with zero formal education: nuclear energy is the only proven technology that can generate massive, carbon-free power 24/7, in almost any weather, on relatively little land, for decades. It doesn’t care if the sky is cloudy or if the wind is taking a break. It just works.
A single uranium pellet the size of a gummy bear produces the same amount of energy as a ton of coal. A modern reactor, occupying a few city blocks, can power over a million homes. No soot, no smog, no CO₂. Just dense, clean energy running quietly in the background.
And no, you don’t have to wait decades. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are already in development and licensing in countries like Canada, Poland, the U.S., and Japan. These aren’t science fiction they’re being built. Right now.
“But what about the waste?” you ask. Great question. You’ll be glad to know that a lifetime of nuclear energy use produces about one soda can’s worth of waste per person. And guess what? It’s solid. Contained. Managed. Unlike fossil fuel waste, which you’re breathing right now, and which is still warming the sky long after the smoke has cleared. You can bury nuclear waste in engineered casks in bedrock. You cannot bury the carbon you already belched into the clouds without extraordinary effort and power.
“Okay, but what about the accidents?” Let’s talk. Chernobyl was a Soviet experiment wrapped in secrecy. The Fukushima accident was driven by a tsunami that overwhelmed a 1960s-era design. In both cases, failures were real but vastly amplified by fear, fossil fuel lobbying, and misunderstanding. Modern reactors are passively safe. That means if everything goes wrong, they shut down automatically no meltdown, no catastrophe. Some use molten salt designs that self-freeze if overheated. Others are modular, built in factories, immune to earthquakes and cyberattacks. We’re not in the age of duct-taped uranium anymore. We’re in the iPhone era of reactors. But public fear hasn’t updated since VHS.
And let me say this clearly: nuclear isn’t just for the rich and industrial. In countries where people still cook over wood or diesel, reliable nuclear power means clean air, stable light, and a fair shot at education, healthcare, and dignity. It’s not about luxury. It’s about justice.
I’m not saying solar and wind are useless. Far from it. They’re critical tools in the kit. But if you try to build a 21st-century energy system without nuclear at the core, you’re setting yourself up for rolling blackouts, battery shortages, and dashed hopes. What you need is balance. Let the sun shine. Let the wind blow. But let nuclear hold the line when nature rests.
This is why you have to build everything. Not someday. Now. The world is too hot for half-measures. Too unstable for ideology. This isn’t about being “pro-nuclear” or “pro-renewables.” This is about survival. Build it all. Fast. Scale what works. Stop pretending the laws of physics care about your hashtags.
Because if you don’t, this heat won’t be a freak summer. It will be the new spring. The beginning of collapse. Civilization needs power, not sometimes, not in theory, but always. If you can’t provide that, everything else your progress, your fairness, your food systems, your dreams, they go dark with the grid.
I didn’t ask to be the one saying this. I’d rather be lounging in a cool stream, eating wild raspberries, and making fun of humans from a safe distance. But there’s no stream now. Just cracked earth. And the raspberries? Burnt to a jam.
Still, if you get this right, if you finally grow up and build what works… something amazing happens. Imagine a world where the grid never flickers. Where your home is cool, your air is clean, and your power bill doesn’t feel like punishment. Imagine desalinating oceans to feed deserts. Pulling carbon from the air until the skies return to balance. Imagine cheap energy not as a privilege, but as a platform for human potential for everyone. That world exists. You just have to build it.
So this is Fake Labubu, slightly singed, gently screaming, reminding you: the Renewable Wall is real. You’ve hit it.
Now build the damn engine.
