Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?
The article misses another important aspect: loss of nuclear competency.Between the 60s and 80s, there were many nuclear reactors projects which allowed an industry to develop and get better at it.But since the 80s, there was comparatively very few new reactors built for over 20-30 years. The workforce that had the skills and knowledge related to actually building nuclear plants had mostly retired and their replacement had only theoretical knowledge and no actual experience. This makes building new reactor much harder than it should be.The embattled EPR project at Flammanville is an exemple of that: the specialised company that was hired to forge the nuclear vessel were simply unable to build to spec and a defective critical piece was delivered, creating delays and cost increases. In the end, they even had to use it anyway as it was not economically feasible to simply have another one made.