[konspence]

There are many arguments against nuclear and they aren't going anywhere. I find myself in the middle, I hope that renewables can displace all other power modes, but also find nuclear enticing for base load.

What stops an economic powerhouse like the EU:

- engineering and design costs are insane for new nuclear plants

- waste is also probably expensive given a largely urbanized continent

- solar and wind plummeting in costs, as well as batteries (yes, I will admit this is counter to the previous point as solar/wind occupy more space than waste storage)

- potentially, a stigma associating nuclear energy with former incompetent governance

- not all of EU (or world) is in a geographically stable region, i.e. resilient against earthquakes, which would balloon the cost of a safe nuclear power plant