alt Hacker News> It’s only expensive and brittle because environmentalists have choked it to death.
The only reason why "environmentalists" were able to influence the debate around nuclear is because nuclear is uneconomical and studded with actual, real problems.
Look at fossil fuels. Environmentally and in terms of public health it is way worse than nuclear (at least a current respective buildout levels). And environmentalists have campaigned against it for decades. Still, it is not only used, its use has expanded until very recently.
That is because fossil fuels were incredibly cheap (as its environmental costs have been externalized), while nuclear has been incredibly expensive, even with massive government subsidies. Fossil fuels are also very practical, while nuclear is cumbersome and comes with real security issues (terrorists and planes and such) that have nothing to do with some hippies blockading nuclear fuel transports.
"Cheap nuclear" is a pipe dream that has never been realized. Not even Chinese nuclear (no environmentalists there) is anywhere near as cheap as solar.
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Nobody said it would be as cheap as solar. But "renewables" can't fulfill ALL power needs ALL the time.
When you actually need to generate electricity rather than gather it, what's better than nuclear?
> "Cheap nuclear" is a pipe dream that has never been realized. Not even Chinese nuclear (no environmentalists there) is anywhere near as cheap as solar.
France went 75% nuclear in the 1980s. If we had built all those nuclear plants back in the 1980s when France did, they would be fully depreciated by now. And we'd be having this conversation about "cheap solar" in a far more favorable position where we had avoided huge amounts of CO2 emissions for 40+ years while we waited for solar technology to improve.
German Greens have managed the feat of presiding over extending strip coal while closing nuclear power plants. But hey, they fought for it since the 70s, and finally won; we all lost.
> "Cheap nuclear" is a pipe dream that has never been realized. Not even Chinese nuclear (no environmentalists there) is anywhere near as cheap as solar.
In Ontario, Canada, 50% of all power comes from nuclear and costs CAD 0.12/kWh (USD 0.08/kWh); see Table 2:
* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2025...
On the spectrum from "cheap" to expensive, where would that fall?
For many years it was actually cheaper than (methane/natural) gas:
* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...