If you want the cheapest power, then burn lots of coal and don't hold power plants accountable for their emissions. Do you really want the cheapest power?
What I want doesn't really matter. What I'm saying is that solutions must be possible to implement.
So say somehow I've got $10 billion burning a hole in my pocket. Would I build nuclear with that? No, it'd be stupid, because chances are high I would never see a profit.
So I would build solar. It's not reliable and troublesome for the grid? Well, not my problem to solve, I'm merely a power provider, balancing the grid isn't my responsibility.
Ok, say there's a really well intentioned politician, will they use lots of tax money to build nuclear? But why would they? In modern countries such things are achieved by consensus, which means one person can hardly take credit for it, and they may never see it actually start operating during their term.
A political party then? Power tends to switch back and forth, and the next power in party is fairly likely to sabotage their predecessors legacy. Since the plants take a long time to build the chances are slim for a party in favor to see the benefits.
> If you want the cheapest power, then burn lots of coal and don't hold power plants accountable for their emissions.
That's not the cheapest, because the price for the emissions gets paid (whether or not we choose to account for it).
The cheapest is the source of new power capacity that provides the lowest total levelized cost - including its externalities - at a given level of reliability (firmness). Right now, that's a race between renewables+storage and combined cycle natural gas.
