[pfdietz]

No, it's because nuclear fell out of the running economically. In large part this was due to the steady advance in gas turbine (and combined cycle) power plants. The capital cost of these plants is just incredibly low, 10-20 times cheaper per kW than a nuclear plant.

[jboog]

If "activists" stopped spending all their time fear-mongering about how expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming nuclear is we could have had massive government subsidies to almost entirely end fossil fuel production for energy!

[pfdietz]

The "it's all the activist's fault" argument has long since become ludicrous. No, it's because the nuclear lied about how cheap it would be, then failed to execute properly.

[jboog]

When precisely did "the nuclear lied"?

[philipkglass]

The cost and timeline estimates for building new reactors at Vogtle and VC Summer were woefully lowballed.

The VC Summer project was ultimately cancelled in 2017, 4 years after construction started, with no reactor completed. $9 billion had already been spent. Utility executives criminally concealed the dire state of the project before it was cancelled.

"US utility boss pleads guilty to fraud over failed nuclear construction scheme"

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/us-utility-bos...

With the guilty plea, Marsh admitted that he intentionally defrauded ratepayers by giving over-optimistic assessments of progress on the scheme so that his company could obtain rate increases from Scana’s customers and qualify for up to $2.2bn in tax credits.

After the scheme broke ground in March 2013, it suffered delays and cost overruns. By late 2016, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Marsh knew that efforts by engineer Westinghouse to improve the pace and productivity of the project were “woefully inadequate”.

...

Shortly after, Marsh fraudulently withheld this information from South Carolina’s utility regulator.

Also:

"US executive pleads guilty in nuclear project delay cover-up"

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/us-executive-p...

A former executive of South Carolina utility Scana Corp has pleaded guilty to his role in what investigators called a “breathtaking” conspiracy to hide unresolvable problems in a project to build a $10bn nuclear power plant.

Prosecutors said Byrne knew the scheme was hopelessly behind and over budget, but that his and co-conspirators’ deceptions allowed Scana to obtain rate increases from Scana’s customers to continue financing it.

There are no criminal charges I'm aware of in connection with the Vogtle project, but it seems to have been estimated with a similarly ludicrous degree of optimism. Construction started in March 2013. In 2014 Georgia Power was telling the public that its new reactors would be operating in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

"Vogtle 3 & 4 Project Overview (2014)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20140326153321/https://www.georg...

Here's a timeline of how Vogtle costs escalated through 2018:

https://www.powermag.com/how-the-vogtle-nuclear-expansions-c...

It went from an estimate of $15.5 billion in 2013 to $27 billion in 2018. Vogtle 3 may finally start this year if there aren't further delays.