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Comment by crdoconnor | Hacker News Reader

>Nuclear construction costs in the US did spiral out of control, especially after the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. But this wasn't universal. Countries like ... Japan kept costs fairly stable during this period

So if we keep costs down like Japan did we can experience the same cost savings they did?

Where do I sign up?

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Compared to the radiation deaths caused by coal power plants, Fukushima was a little inconsequential blip, so even if we assume that it represented what you get if you follow Japanese regulations, it'd still be a plus.

Except we're easily at a point now where both coal and nuclear plants can be phased out as they reach the end of their natural lives and replaced with solar + wind farms at a reasonable cost, as Germany and Denmark are currently demonstrating.

The variability problem turned out to be smaller than nuclear+coal industry led us to believe and relatively easily managed with market based solutions (e.g. ramping up/down power usage by aluminum smelters and simply building in extra capacity) rather than by building massive batteries (an idiotic idea).

Massive batteries is an idiotic idea, as you said. Which is why the constant and large and instantaneous fluctuations from solar and wind are smoothed largely by natural gas. Recommend checking out the video of RFK, Jr saying a solar or wind plant is a gas plant.

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