[hn_throwaway_99]

Those are not the only alternatives for storage. I think Power-to-gas, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas, will be an important part of energy storage. Basically, use excess renewable energy to create hydrogen and methane by means of electrolysis. That's essentially natural gas, which can then be used by conventional natural gas power plants.

[epups]

Will be, or is? I'm talking about the current state of technology. There is no clean viable alternative to nuclear except hydro.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Well, if you're talking about "the current state of technology", the general consensus as I understand it is that building new nuclear power plants is not cost effective with other forms of energy storage/generation capacity.

I'm all for keeping existing nuclear plants online, but I don't think building new ones is the right decision.

Also, yes, there are viable green hydrogen plants being built today: https://totalenergies.com/media/news/press-releases/total-an... . Also, France is likely to lead in this area because they just got hydrogen produced with nuclear to be considered "green", which is a great thing in my opinion.

[epups]

> the general consensus as I understand it is that building new nuclear power plants is not cost effective with other forms of energy storage/generation capacity.

Different forms of energy generation serve different purposes. I hope you can see why comparing nominal prices of solar panel installations vs a nuclear power plant is misguided. The latter can take you through a tough winter, the former cannot. Renewables are great, let's keep building them. For the times where they cannot help us, we can then choose to use a technology that is costly in dollars (nuclear) or lives (gas/oil/coal).

[hn_throwaway_99]

You're mistaking operational costs with capital costs.

Nuclear has huge up front capital costs, which makes building new plants a non-starter if it is believed that other storage options (including batteries and things like green hydrogen) will be cheaper before the lifespan of a power plant can essentially recoup its large up front costs.

[epups]

No, I'm not. I'm saying that just because renewables are cheaper, you cannot simply replace anything with them or you would have severe unreliability.