@otfrom @jwildeboer One reason that nuclear is not a panacea as some zealots would like to believe, but in conjunction with (eg) solar and storage can still be v useful. I am in favour of new nukes, but not somehow instead of renewables.
@DamonHD @otfrom @jwildeboer Nuclear is a cheaper way to replace fossil fuels (at least once you get the construction going, and not just building one plant after 40 years of nothing)
@fcalva @otfrom @jwildeboer The 'cheaper' is widely contested for a number of reasons, but indeed also not building any for decades and forgetting how to do it does not help!
@DamonHD @otfrom @jwildeboer What reasons ? The upfront cost is high (it's also why there are few privately built nuclear plants), but the running costs per Wh are very low.

@fcalva @DamonHD

The running costs of PV and wind turbines is even lower? Which doesn't help, because the building costs of nuclear are so high that the cost per kWh is insane.

@leftlink @DamonHD Their lifespan is short, and building cost per Wh is, again, really high.
Solar is mostly so cheap to install right now because the ground was broken for the installation/manufacturing industry by governement subventions. The same could be done for nuclear except it would be a lot more worth it (And the chinese are doing it !)
@fcalva @DamonHD Nuclear life span isn't much longer, everyone just keeps using it way beyond its lifespan because it's too expensive to rebuild. Wind turbines run 30 years easily aswell.
Also nuclear isnt new, it's old and it's not getting much cheaper. I don't think China is going to, they are going all in solar as far as new capacity is looking.
@leftlink @DamonHD China is currently building 30 reactors for 34.4GW.
Nuclear is barely older than solar, and much younger than wind. It just didn't have any fancy PR, and a lot less R&D lately.

@fcalva @DamonHD they built in 277 GW of solar in 2024 alone though. Assuming 1kh to 8kh of full load, that is still 34 GW of "nuclear equivalent" in one year.

I mean nuclear generation was old when the first PV plants went in some capacity on grid, but sure it's about the same.

@leftlink @DamonHD Granted it's a lower investement than in solar, but it's still about 6x the whole rest of the world.

@fcalva @DamonHD oh I completely forgot your point about subsidies ! Nuclear was literally subsidized the last 50 years, and around the world, because of its funny byproduct used in weapons :D
Yeah nah, I don't think it's getting much cheaper.

Also source, though most lcoes for 2050 don't even include nuclear :D https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/45._figure_45_nuke_world_costs_iea.pdf

@leftlink @DamonHD Large scale civil construction was never a thing outside of France, the USSR, and kind of the US. Only the bare minimum to keep the military part alive and the intial R&D are state funded in most countries.
Military nuclear research is a very different thing from the civil part. It's only linked by that "funny byproduct" as you call it, and the basic nuclear reactions.
@fcalva @DamonHD what ? Great Britain in the 1990s produced 25% of their electricity, Germany 30 - 35% through nuclear, the USSR was incredibly heavily into it. If that's not industrial, I don't know what is.