I agree that wind/solar and nuclear are alternatives rather than complements. This is why I think little nuclear will end up being built outside countries like

I agree that wind/solar and nuclear are alternatives rather than complements. This is why I think little nuclear will end up being built outside countries like France which are all in on it. As the cost of generating electricity from gas is mostly the cost of the gas its perfectly reasonable to have those gas plants built and operated 10% of the time so long as the total system cost is much lower than building nuclear. There's an arguable case that for 100% carbon-free electricity (rather than 90% carbon free) the economics of nuclear are potentially viable, at least for places like northern Europe where you can't just build a huge amount of solar and 24 hours of battery storage. But it seems far more important to decarbonise the grid as fast as we can and that means building lots of cheap renewables. Nuclear is simply too expensive and too slow to build. Which is a shame because it is cool tech! Closing existing nuclear plants like Germany has done is an absolute disgrace. We should keep existing plants open for as long as possible. And of course, if anyone can figure out how to build nuclear cheaply then build a bunch more. Then maybe they will replace the renewables currently being built as they end of their service lives.