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The typically socialised decommissioning costs, far in excess of estimates, of nuclear usually seem to more than cancel out any cost competitiveness.

I was quite pro-nuclear in the 80s and 90s...



... until we collectively decided to stop leveraging the upsides of nuclear and it turned into just a money pit, rather than a plausible investment. Yeah, I hear you. FWIW I consider it a lost cause these days too. It didn't have to be that way.

Sounds like China is making a go for it, though. Maybe in 20 years they can come build some plants to save us from the duck curve.


China is helped there that they can centrally require it. I doubt they have quite the NIMBY issue we typically get for major projects...


Well, if you agree with the comment you're replying to you'd logically still have to be pro nuclear now. Because the costs of our fossil fuel energy production seem like they'll be the death of our civilization.


I've never advocated sticking with fossil though. Nuclear could have bought us lots of extra time to deal with the rest - if all the coal generation had got replaced by nuclear say in the 90s - but that bird flew ages ago.

Personally, for most of the 21st century I've seen wind, solar, tidal and (pumped) hydro as increasingly more suited - far faster to bring onstream, and without quite the same scale of NIMBY delays of nuclear. A network of micro generators seems more suited to the adoption of community heat and power which also seems an essential part of reaching zero emission - as seen today in Ireland's emissions plan.




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