This is the thing about nuclear: the promise of "cheap" power has been made since the 1960s, but very rarely delivered on, and it is not coming down yet, while everyone can see the massive cost collapse for renewables that has already happened and more reasonably project it into the future.
Modular units are firmly in the "I'll believe it when I see it, meanwhile keep the renewables building as fast as possible" category.
(also, everyone has forgotten about proliferation. The fighting around Zhaprozhia did remind a few people about the security risks, though)
> This is the thing about nuclear: the promise of "cheap" power has been made since the 1960s, but very rarely delivered on, and it is not coming down yet, while everyone can see the massive cost collapse for renewables that has already happened and more reasonably project it into the future.
Part of this is because of how absolutely f-ed up research in fission has been over the decades.
There is this graph if you can find it showing how much money was estimated to be spent on R&D, vs how much was actually spent. Basically by the 1980s or 90s, if investments were made, nuclear would've been much cheaper today. There's a bunch of things more, but it's not that nuclear is inherently expensive more than the fact that you need to spend money first to save it.
Modular units are firmly in the "I'll believe it when I see it, meanwhile keep the renewables building as fast as possible" category.
(also, everyone has forgotten about proliferation. The fighting around Zhaprozhia did remind a few people about the security risks, though)