> If the US (and EU) grids went highly nuclear that doesn't mean we'd also have more electric vehicles or more electric appliances. We would look a lot more like France (in energy). It isn't just the price of electricity that has caused these things to become more popular. For example, with cars the battery technology is a big example of why we see them now and not in the past. There may have been more pressure for this, but it isn't an assumption we can make.

I don't know that the original poster is implying there's a certainty about this, but it's certainly a possibility. If the US had bet heavily on nuclear, there's a lot of dominoes that would fall with this. There'd be more investment in nuclear and potential benefits from that. There'd be less demand for fossil fuels, consequently less exploration & development of fossil fuels. It would also have changed positioning and strategy when it comes to global climate change initiatives. It's at least conceivable there'd be a dramatic global impact, but modeling the systemic consequences of one decision is problematic at best.