this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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You don't need baseload. You need to follow the duck curve of demand.
You had baseload because those plants used to be the cheapest one you could find. That's not true anymore, and the model needs to shift with it.
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/kevin-steinberger/debunking-three-myths-about-baseload
Yes if you ignore all externalities the "economics" means that you can use Natural Gas "peaking" plants instead. But one of the main advantages of nuclear power is zero green-house gas emissions.
If fossil fuels were taxed appropriately, the economics of them wouldn't be viable anymore. A modest tax of a $million USD per ton of CO2 would fix up that price discrepancy.
Most of this is being driven by renewables. Natural gas gets mentioned because its price has dropped due to fracking, but it's not a strictly necessary part of this argument, either. Water/wind/solar solutions have undercut even the plummet in natural gas prices.
Nuclear has no place. Nobody is building it, and it's not because regulators are blocking it. It's also completely unnecessary.
What do you mean nobody's building it. Lots of countries are building it the UK's literally just started construction on a new nuclear power plant at Hinckley.
The situation that you believe exists in the world does in fact not exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station
You sure this is what you want to cite as a success? This story of cost and budget overruns is the norm in nuclear projects.
Stop moving the goal post, your claim was no one was building nuclear power stations, clearly they are building nuclear power stations.
In this entire thread, no one has ever made the claim that they were easy or quick to build.
So this is about your misunderstanding of exaggeration? Obviously there's a few projects going around the world. They've largely fallen into the problems above: over budget and over schedule. Consistently. France is just about the only success story.
Construction basically is at a standstill in the US. I've detailed elsewhere in the thread how the NRC approved several licenses years ago, but zero progress has been made. It's easy to see why. Nuclear is a shit tier investment.
France built the fuck out of it, 71% of their power is nuclear. Works darn well.
In the US, the over-regulation makes it horrifically expensive. Every plant is bespoke instead of mass produced, with exchangeable parts, personnel, and knowledge. Mass produce nuclear plants and the costs come way down.
Wind and solar are paired with natural gas. People still want power in the winter and at night and right now that is natural gas. By opposing nuclear, you ensure it will continue to be natural gas paired with wind and solar.