The only way you can pretend nuclear is "better for the environment" is if you ignore most of its supply chain and only point a finger to "what comes out of the stack." The fuel supply chain is incredibly energy-intensive, expensive, and environmentally unfriendly, and unlike the materials used for rare-earth magnets and lithium ion batteries which everyone here loves to bleat about...the material is not recycled (nor can it be without significant changes that will take decades) whereas rare earth magnets, lithium ion batteries, and now windmill blades, are all recyclable.

Nuclear has never been economically viable. It's been subsidized, enormously, for close to a century as the stepchild of the "defense" nuclear weapon and propulsion industries. It continues to get more expensive, whereas wind/solar/energy storage are plunging in cost.

Nuclear would also still require energy storage because it can only fulfill base load; nuclear takes days to change power levels, and running at anything other than full capacity drastically impacts its economic viability.

You can point to research all you like. US power companies are buying wind, solar, and energy storage. Not only are they not buying nuclear, they're shutting down plants because they are not economically viable.

It's funny how HN is all "free market!" when it comes to things like renewables and decarbonizing transit (ie "why muh tax dollars going to this?!")...but nobody seems to acknowledge that the nuclear industry is massively subsidized and Biden is proposing throwing billions more at the industry because of lobbying.

Also, that paper was published four years ago, which means it was based on even older data, and the cost of renewables and energy storage is plunging while nuclear goes up in cost...