Assuming your lower estimate of 15B + 60B, that remains two orders of magnitude above the insurance policy you claim "is extremely unlikely" to be exceeded, so arguably my point stands.
"Reliable power" is well.. this keeps coming up, and it's always this black-and-white thing; sometimes the wind doesn't blow, so you can't rely on it.
And then the other side will counter that the downtime of wind is predictable, unlike that of nuclear (see the need to raise the price ceiling in EU day-ahead markets to deal with the unplanned nuke outages in France going on right now). This side will say the predictable 45% capacity factor of wind is preferable to the unpredictable 90% capacity factor of nukes.
In reality, a stable energy system is built by combining energy sources of different strengths. Wind and solar provides bulk cheap power most of the time, with hydro and nukes ramping to match production changes. This is identical to how the grid is already ramping to match demand changes every day.
We see this dynamic every day in EU markets, with wind+hydro slotting together, hydro flexing up and down as wind ebbs and flows. You can see this live in the "Origin of Electricity" charts on electricitymap: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/SE
"Reliable power" is well.. this keeps coming up, and it's always this black-and-white thing; sometimes the wind doesn't blow, so you can't rely on it.
And then the other side will counter that the downtime of wind is predictable, unlike that of nuclear (see the need to raise the price ceiling in EU day-ahead markets to deal with the unplanned nuke outages in France going on right now). This side will say the predictable 45% capacity factor of wind is preferable to the unpredictable 90% capacity factor of nukes.
In reality, a stable energy system is built by combining energy sources of different strengths. Wind and solar provides bulk cheap power most of the time, with hydro and nukes ramping to match production changes. This is identical to how the grid is already ramping to match demand changes every day.
We see this dynamic every day in EU markets, with wind+hydro slotting together, hydro flexing up and down as wind ebbs and flows. You can see this live in the "Origin of Electricity" charts on electricitymap: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/SE