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Isn't oil subsidized while nuclear covered in red tape and regulations? It should be the other way around: tax carbon and subsidize nuclear.

• dale_glass 5y ago
  Which red tape and regulations? You're not seriously asking people not to keep a good eye on nuclear powerplants, are you? Because accidents are not a good thing. And yeah, I get they don't kill that many people, but evacuating a large amount of people and cleaning up is an enormous expense. Which is part of the problem really. You can build a really solid powerplant, which will cost $$. Or you can let people do it on the cheap, and deal with the consequences when it leaks, which will cost $$$.
  • nickpp 5y ago
    Or you can quickly build a coal plant which only costs $. Do you see now how this way of thinking got us into this conundrum?
    • dale_glass 5y ago
      Coal plants are not that profitable anymore. Renewables are what is the cheapest right now: https://i.imgur.com/gj6csyJ.png https://i.imgur.com/gj6csyJ.png Now looking at that graph I think one thing becomes very clear: no sane person would buy power from a nuclear plant if they could get it from solar or wind instead. But if you do that, nuclear becomes even more expensive. It's nearly all capital costs. If you're only selling power during half the day, you make half the money, and take twice as long to pay off the loans. That introduces the very real possibility that you'll never pay it off. And so why would anybody want to build one?