https://energypost.eu/how-profitable-is-an-investment-in-nuc...
And France, with many Nuclear plants, has recently had issues keeping the plants up. Many of the most problematic plants are newer ones.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-3939/frances-energy-woes-wo...
The reality is economies of scale have kicked in for solar and wind energy in a way they never can for nuclear. We are at the point where it makes sense, at times, to overprovision renewals to ensure enough supply.
The issue with renewables is storage, of course. But that problem looks to be more solvable than cost effective nuclear, a problem which we have not solved in over 50 years. One can say if we were only smarter we could make nuclear more cost effective, which is probably true. But we built a nuclear power plant where a tsunami occurred in the past, only to find it occurred again, so we aren't that smart. The issue with nuclear is everything has to be right for it to be cost effective and safe, and nuclear is too complex for humans to consistently do this.
Safe nuclear power that is also cost effective is not a problem we have solved.
That said, I am not super bullish on nuclear, and agree with your position. Solar and wind are just getting too cheap for nuclear to get the investment needed to catch-up. If we see someone crack the code on cheap storage of electiciy, solar and wind will runaway with the prize. Not coincidentally, storage is has vastly more investment of money and brains on looking for ways to scale vs nuclear.
*Safety concerns with nuclear will make iterative design difficult to pull off!
So do oil and coal [0]:
> Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020 or about 6.8 percent of GDP, and are expected to rise to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025
[0]: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...
My vote is to rapidly install renewables while we have the natural gas backstop, and give the storage startups a few years to make it happen. Energy Dome, Hydrostor, and Form Energy all look promising.
And if new nuclear turns out to be less expensive than expected, great.
Many more than that.
It’s really hard to invest billions of capital dollars that won’t produce any return for a decade while you can realize immediate return on solar with costs that drop every year.
Accountants are the worst enemy of nuclear, not activists.