France proved decades ago that nuclear gives cheap, low-carbon power at scale. Every serious path to net zero includes it.
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There are plenty of issues. But, as above, they are the issues generic to State Planning not specific to nuclear power (except for proliferation, albeit that does fold into "do you trust *this* state?").
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
There are perfectly coherent Free Market arguments for supporting smaller scale renewables over nuclear/large-scale hydro / perfectly good State Planning arguments for preferring nuclear/large-scale hydro.
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 0 0 • view
The problem is that public discourse about nuclear - even among who go out of their way to tell you about their strong feelings about economics - is actually turns on testosterone/risk tolerance.
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 0 0 • view
Which, if anything, is 180 degrees rotated from the actual underlying objective choices. Nuclear/big hydro makes sense for people who prize safety enough to spend extra and early. Smaller scale renewables (wind/solar) makes more sense for a risk-tolerant "batteries will imp fast enough prob" guy.
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
But it's very hard to de-anchor people once they've convinced themselves that a piece of technology represents specific values. More broadly, even framing it as a choice telegraphs "this person has no background/real interest in the subject".
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
It's just ... energy generation tech. It is not a political horoscope. The stuff people are convinced represents some opposition axis in political space ... is in fact, totally complimentary. Nuclear, Hydro, Wind and Solar is totally rational portfolio to edge out coal and gas.
sep 1, 2025, 9:55 am • 2 0 • view
Right, and we can talk all day about the philosophical, long term, and safety stuff - but in an 'all of the above' energy generation paradgm, the cost-curves are what is causing all the flow 2 RE+storage. The reply for nuclear goes to planning & supply chain but that's just state capacity in a wig.
sep 1, 2025, 11:01 am • 1 0 • view
And there's no short term solution to that. You just had to make different decisions last decade - or be a different kind of administrative state.
sep 1, 2025, 11:02 am • 0 0 • view
(I will say, SMRs was an attempt at a way out of this box - 'solve for low state capacity/supply chain, not for efficiency' - but it's just hard to make it work even then on cost basis with a much more dynamic grid, and legal framework around inherently shiny special rocks... ☢️
sep 1, 2025, 11:05 am • 0 0 • view