> we aren't building coal or nuclear because there are outrageous political risks Wrong. We aren't building coal or nuclear for reasons of economics.

The high electricity prices are partially due to gold-plating the poles and wires due to very odd 'oversight' agreements in which any investment in poles and wires infrastructure had a guaranteed return on investment - it allowed the infrastructure owners to increase their charges to cover the poles and wires investment, almost no matter how much they invested, so they went LARGE.

High power prices are also partially due to the generators gaming the market in times of high power usage and low wind / solar generation. Making use of loopholes in the 20-year old rules. Loopholes that didn't exist when everything was coal, but caused by the fact that the rules haven't been updated to reflect the inclusion of wind and solar into the generation mix. The "Market Operator" had been asleep at the wheel for years.

Politics is getting in the way of building Wind and Solar , not the other way round.