Whatever happened to Watson?

Congratulations to the US on reaching 30% renewable energy. By comparison, the EU reached 48% by 2025.
Wind power is relatively cheap and quick to build, but is intermittent with no electricity when there is no wind.
Sure, battery energy storage can help to some extent and Europe is investing too,
but it is expensive technology, has limited capacity and a lifespan of 5 to 15 years.
Europe still uses mostly pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES) for storage.
Maybe research can give us better hydrogen storage?

Baseload is the minimum level of energy required and hardly varies over time, i.e. during a 24-hour period.
But both wind and solar are intermittent energy sources and are generated only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.
The US gets 51% of its electricity from gas and 17% from coal.
That generates carbon dioxide emissions and it would be great if they could be replaced by nuclear power plants.

Wind and solar is great and cheap, but vanish at night, during calm periods, or under clouds.

That is probably correct, traditionally.
But nuclear power can and is used to balance the electricity grid.
If wind power delivers too little, nuclear power can compensate and increase production.
This is done in Germany and France, but not everywhere.
It can also be used to keep the frequency at 50 Hz.

I'll refrain from insults.

See

https://fdehydro.com/base-load...
-> Base Load = The minimum power a grid needs at all times, delivered at a steady, constant rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
-> Capacity factor = The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given
period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period.

And check the Wikipedia curve for different energy sources.

Nuclear power is dispatchable to some extent, meaning it can adapt to varying requests, but renewables are not.
A nuclear generator can generate electricity at any time of the day regardless of the weather or season
and typically has a capacity factor of 85-95 percent, meaning it delivers electricity almost all the time.
This makes nuclear power a reliable baseload power source.
Whereas for wind power that is only 25-40 percent.

Renewable energy sources are great and often cheap, but they have their problems.
The electricity grid has limitations because it was designed around centralized generation,
and the intermittent nature of solar and wind power has problems with reliability and storage.
There is a need for electricity even in the middle of windless winter nights,
and while nuclear power is not completely free from carbon emissions, it is much smaller than that of fossil fuels.

And you don't have to worry about, and pay for, parking-space.

Just wait for the 4D printers. They will be truly amazing.

I hope I don't end up in a situation where I need a self-driving car, because I enjoy driving way too much. And cheap public transportation is great for regular daily transportation.

Government Guidance Funds (GGFs) are the dominant investors in frontline technology companies like chip manufacturing. But this is about more than just economics. This is about long-term strategy.

Yet venture capital is primarily a private enterprise pursuit of profit and the government mostly pays a secondary role.

Western public funding is supportive, like for basic research, while GGFs pursue specific technological goals defined by the government.

The Chinese government funds innovation in China, while in the west it is private enterprise driven by the profits.
In China the government lead the development of technology with Government Guidance Funds and a somewhat bureaucratic process but with national long-term goals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... A significant difference.