If those were real problems then nuclear power would get built. Capitalism finds a way if there is profit to be made. Less scrupulous countries would pounce on

If those were real problems then nuclear power would get built. Capitalism finds a way if there is profit to be made. Less scrupulous countries would pounce on the opportunity to have cheaper energy. That evidently has not happened and even China is reducing their nuclear share of the electricity mix, going all in on renewables and storage instead. The real reason is cost. Nuclear power plants produce extremely expensive electricity until they are paid off ~40 years later. For paid off nuclear plants the cost is acceptable as long as they can get paid for nearly all hours of the day, if capacity factors craters then paid-off plants become too expensive. And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at €0 50% of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady state. Who wants to lock in energy crisis prices until ~2080 factoring in construction time? The nukebro squad seems to think that is reasonable. > From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season). Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production. What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed. Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France. But this is the issue you guys never tackle. It is all about "baseload" without the slightest understanding about how the demand curve looks.