As much as I'd love to see us as a civilization control the atom, I'm not seeing the financial case for why we should be focusing on nuclear right now. NuScale

As much as I'd love to see us as a civilization control the atom, I'm not seeing the financial case for why we should be focusing on nuclear right now. NuScale said their tech was targeting $90/MWh, and trying to get a first plant running by 2023[1]. That's a non-starter for most modern utility RFPs even today. Xcel Energy is seeing bids as low as $18/MWh for wind, $29/MWh for solar, and $36/MWh for solar+storage[2]. So maybe nuclear can fit into the realm of the 10% of edge cases where renewables+storage aren't effective, but I'm not seeing any financial scenario where nuclear comes close to providing the middle 80% of generation capacity. It's just too damn expensive. Unless Bill Gates is proposing we can cut nuclear prices by 80%, I'm worried this is a huge distraction from us deploying renewables + storage + flexible load, which is currently extremely cheap and getting cheaper. [1]: https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-reactors/nuscale-targets-smr-cost-below-90mwh-wider-deployment https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-reac... [2]: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-solar-plus-storage-price-in-xcel-solicitation https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-sola...