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* The market situation was vastly different. Renewables were being developed in a mature market.

* What you mean, but conveniently left out, is that nuclear reactors that are written off are competitive. Until they get too old to fix, then they're closed. That's what's happening at the moment in the Western world whether we like it or not.

When you talk about newer reactor designs, you are not talking about commercial reactors, but research reactors, for which the true cost/potential is unknown.

Nuclear isn't a good match for PV and wind, as those are cheaper when they're on. So you have a huge capital investment but only a low realized capacity factor.

> That's what's happening at the moment in the Western world whether we like it or not.

that's what will happen to the current generation of solar and wind power plants

Yeah and it's a thousand times easier to quickly replace those because their key components are not the most dangerous substances on the planet!

There are a lot of much more dangerous substances on the planet, and many of them are likely used in the manufacturing process of photovoltaics.

Cite?

Have fun with the googling. Feel free to check out the toxicity of plutonium (separate from radiation) while you're at it.

Well, hydrogen cyanide is more dangerous, it is used to produce cyanide salts (potassium and sodium), which are also extremely toxic, and are commonly used in electroplating

And is hydrogen cyanide not used in nuclear plant construction?

> Nuclear isn't a good match for PV and wind, as those are cheaper when they're on. So you have a huge capital investment but only a low realized capacity factor.

That's the wrong conclusion. In a grid made of unreliables and nuclear power, electricity is worthless during the day and priceless at night. If you assume[^] cheap batteries, electricity is worthless in summer and priceless in winter.

[^] But remember, if you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.

> Nuclear energy has received less than 50% of the subsidies that renewables have. Renewables only recently ceased to "need" this, and they've been under development for decades. Nuclear power hasn't had investment in significant research since about 1970.

The numbers for subsidies of nuclear power come with some many caveats that they are useless. It does not cover the cost of insuring nuclear power, so you can actually pay to clean up disasters. It does not cover the massive amount of money that went into it for military purposes that civilian nuclear power benefitted from.

I don't think it actually covers the decommissioning costs either, because these seems to typically be much larger than first anticipated.

The subsidies of renewables meanwhile give a false picture because the cost varies considerably depending on where you are in the world. Germany pushed solar into what it is today, but it is not a country well suited for solar power.

And unlike nuclear, these subsidies have lead to massive price drops. Subsidies of nuclear power has not led to any drop in price of nuclear power. In fact the costs keep rising.

> Newer designs would be even cheaper. Eh... thus far newer designs have been massively more expensive to build and much slower.

> Newer reactor designs will be safer, cheaper, and less expensive to build.

Ah yeah.... how old are you anyway? I have been hearing this claim for something like 20 years now. I remember the promise of pebble bed reactors for probably 20 years or longer. They were invented back in the 50s I believe. Yet we are still not seeing them being built. At least not here in the west.

I am tired of empty promises from the nuclear industry. Wind and solar has succeed where nuclear has failed. They have been given there chance AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and failed to deliver.

> They will release less radiation into the environment than current coal plants do.

Ah yeah... until there is an accident. After Chernobyl we were promised nothing like this would ever happened again because that reactor was so bad, and bla bla bla. Oops then Fukushima happened. Always the same story "Nobody could have foreseen this!"

Ah yeah... that is kind of the point. That is why nuclear power is a terrible idea. There will always be something you did not think about.

> Yet we are still not seeing them being built.

We’re seeing them be shut down because people don’t seem to want them.

> Ah yeah... until there is an accident.

Even with accidents nuclear has probably released less radiation than coal.

Not probably, it definitely has.

>After Chernobyl we were promised nothing like this would ever happened again because that reactor was so bad, and bla bla bla. Oops then Fukushima happened.

This is remarkably sloppy logic. Chernobyl was a questionable design. Fukushima was a different design that's more common, but still old.

The two accidents had little in common. Did you really think when someone said that Chernobyl wouldn't happen again that they meant all reactor types everywhere would never have another accident of any kind? If so, you're pretty naive.

>There will always be something you did not think about.

True about every technology ever created, and not a good enough reason to avoid progress and invention altogether.

Fukushima's atmospheric release was two orders of magnitude lower than Chernobyl's - 370TBq vs. 70Pbq (cf. https://www.npr.org/2011/04/12/135353240/fukushima-vs-cherno..., https://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/chernobyl/c02.html)

> * Nuclear energy has received [a massive amount of subsidy]

> * Nuclear reactors are competitive in many countries, and in fact they are too in the US.

Illinois has one of the largest nuclear deployments in the US. Our latest climate legislation was drafted by Exelon, and provides massive subsidy in the form of carbon credits to the nuclear industry. And yet even with this, they have no plans to replace their 50-year old reactor fleet and no projected path forward for them except seeking another taxpayer bailout in a couple decades to again extend the life of these obsolete reactors. Nuclear is not competitive, period, unless you choose not to look at the full life-cycle.

Here's what the collective of nuclear advocates at MIT concluded[1], but I'm sure that's just "propaganda and misinformation spread by self righteous willfully ignorant individuals", too.

    For  a  large  expansion  of nuclear  power  to  suc-ceed, four critical problems must be overcome:

    * Cost. In deregulated markets, nuclear power is  not  now  cost  competitive  with  coal  and natural gas. However, plausible reductions by industry in capital cost, operation and maintenance  costs,  and  construction  time  could reduce  the  gap.  Carbon  emission  credits,  if enacted  by  government,  can  give  nuclear power a cost advantage.

    * Safety. Modern  reactor  designs  can  achieve  a very  low  risk  of  serious  accidents,  but  “best practices” in  construction  and  operation  are essential. We know little about the safety of the overall fuel cycle, beyond reactor operation.

    * Waste. Geological disposal is technically feasible but execution is yet to be demonstrated or  certain.  A  convincing  case  has  not  been made that the long-term waste management benefits   of   advanced,   closed   fuel   cycles involving reprocessing of spent fuel are out-weighed  by  the  short-term  risks  and  costs. Improvement in the open, once through fuelcycle  may  offer  waste  management  benefits as large as those claimed for the more expensive closed fuel cycles.

    * Proliferation. The current international safe-guards  regime  is  inadequate  to  meet  the security  challenges  of  the  expanded  nuclear deployment   contemplated   in   the   global growth   scenario.  The   reprocessing   system now  used  in  Europe, Japan, and  Russia  that involves separation and recycling of plutonium presents unwarranted proliferation risks.

1. http://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2003/07/MITEI-The-F...

> they have no plans to replace their 50-year old reactor fleet and no projected path forward for them except seeking another taxpayer bailout in a couple decades to again extend the life of these obsolete reactors.

They have to keep extending obsolete reactors because they aren't allowed to build newer, safer, more efficient ones!

Aren't "allowed" by whom? If it was economical to replace these reactors they would have a plan for it.

By the US Government, nuclear regulatory agencies, the state governments, and above all ignorant people who are afraid of the word "nuclear" and anything associated with it, because they've never understood the idea that nuclear energy can mean something other than "bombs".

For a new plant type to be built, it first has to be approved by the US government. Then funding has to be acquired, insurance bought, permitting done. Unless the US government makes an effort to clear the way for new construction, all that overhead and cost makes new reactor types a non starter for any for profit business.

They could build more of the older types, but with the unreasoning fear associated with nuclear anything in the US population going on, the cost of doing so is ridiculous... and most of these companies don't much care about climate change anyway. They're about profit.

One of your sources is literally a power company.

You could argue that they're biased, but you could also argue that they're the most knowledgeable people available.

If you don't like those sources, look around. There are lots of government studies in many countries available.

If you are willing to read them, that is.