Yes, the claims about economic weakness are correct. Mature American reactors looked like they would be amazing money-printing machines when natural gas prices

Yes, the claims about economic weakness are correct. Mature American reactors looked like they would be amazing money-printing machines when natural gas prices were high and rising; then the shale revolution happened. Nuclear power has higher fixed O&M costs than any other large scale electricity source: http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurepower-plant-om-how-does-the-industry-stack-up-on-cost-4417756/ http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurepower-plant-... That's a major handicap when competitors have cheap fuel (natural gas) or don't buy fuel at all (renewables). It's partially offset by very high nuclear capacity factors, but not enough. I suspect that much of that high O&M cost is going to wages; a nuclear plant employs something like 4x the number of full time workers per MWh generated as a well-sited large solar plant, and I would expect equal-or-better wages for the nuclear workers.