Will the climate crisis force America to reconsider nuclear power?
I think the current nuclear attention actually has more to do with oil and gas price instability scaring consumers, and more importantly voters, than with the climate. Climate is a vague threat in the future for most people. But high gas and electricity prices are something to be feared right now.<p>Of course the irony is that nuclear is actually more expensive than gas powered electricity and it will be consumers and tax payers that will pay for it.<p>The key metric to focus on is $&#x2F;kwh. Anything else is just noise. People will wield terms like base load and speak in very assertive terms about how important it is to have it. Ask them 1 question: how many GWH at what price? It&#x27;s a simple question with a simple answer for nuclear: not a whole lot at great cost.<p>Anything above 10 cents is ludicrously expensive. It&#x27;s not competitive. It can&#x27;t be done without raising energy prices and taxes or increasing national debt. I&#x27;m not talking consumer rates but actual cost per kwh for the producer. The difference is their profit. Profitability of nuclear plants in a market with dirt cheap renewables, is going to be a challenge and the mitigation plan for that is charging consumers and tax payers for it. It&#x27;s beyond stupid to support that. Put a price on it and do the math. It doesn&#x27;t add up to anything good.<p>Slightly below 2 cents is about the best you can get right now. E.g. solar in the United Emirates is bidding close to 1 cent in recent years (unsubsidized). Offshore wind is a few cents more expensive (5-6 cents). Onshore is actually cheaper but less reliable. Consumer cost is much higher than that. Which is why relatively expensive roof top solar (15-20 cents&#x2F;kwh) is attractive to consumers paying much more than that for grid energy.<p>Prices are trending down over time (learning effect, improved technology, etc).  Probably half a cent is a good cost target a few years from now. I.e. by the time these planned nuclear plants become operational. Certainly less than 1 cent. The most rosy projections for new nuclear plants tend to be closer to 10 than to 1 cents per kwh. Emphasis on rosy. Nuclear plants never get build on time and on budget. So that&#x27;s an order of magnitude difference in cost in the best case. Worst case (i.e. what you should plan for), it&#x27;s much worse.<p>And that&#x27;s of course on top of raised taxes needed to pay for all this. Nuclear plants are expensive and not really doable without vast amounts of subsidies. The reason they are being lobbied for is, ironically, that they are that expensive and that it involves vast amounts of government handouts to build them. Good old greed is the main motive here. The nuclear lobby represents many billions of interests and they&#x27;ll be happy to take your tax money. They&#x27;ll take the money and then make you pay again on your monthly bill. And they are spending billions on lobbying to make you believe that&#x27;s a good thing.