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Comment by energy123 | Hacker News Reader

Solar and wind were too expensive twenty years ago. Nuclear was the only option back then. Everyone should have done nuclear but they didn't. But it's not twenty years ago right now. France is the way France is because of decisions they made decades ago. Given none of us have access to a time machine, the best decision is to pursue the most cost effective and fastest to deploy technology today, which is solar and wind.

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Were the nuclear plants shut down in a way which prevents them from being restarted?

Restarting them could be faster and more cost effective than burning coal while waiting for new solar and wind installations.

Early closure of nuclear plants is climate arson. There's no reason for it aside from ideology and hysteria. I'm not in favour of new nuclear for most countries (excepting those that have a track record of building plants quickly and cheaply, or due to seasonal instability of solar) because the capex makes it uncompetitive with solar and wind, but existing nuclear should be kept online for as long as possible.

Not doing nonessential maintenance for twenty years because you know that your plant will be shut down is really not good if you want to eventually restart it.

Renewables are competitive with just running a nuclear plant in some places.

Lazard is US focused but they put running a nuclear plant at 32 dollars and the cheapest wind at $27 and cheapest solar at $29.

That's not including any refurbishment costs. I think France publishes some numbers recently for the cost of their refurbishment program and I don't remember them being particularly great for nuclear, even if they met their cost projections.

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