| The cost of nuclear is in planning and construction. There only scenario in which shutting down a nuclear plant within the next, say, 50 years makes sense is if it has physically deteriorated to the point of it's stability being unknown. Once there is a surplus of entirely green energy, you can consider removing nuclear idle capacity, but even then you'd have to ask "why?". Yes, nuclear produces (manageable) waste. But coal throws its waste into the air, actively killing people of lung cancer and harming cognitive ability, while slowly boiling the planet. And that's before we look at mining. Solar and wind would be nicer, but there's no discussion to be had about removing nuclear while coal and oil power is still out there killing us and the planet. Heck, if you're looking at lives saved, nuclear wins - the total direct and indirect deaths per power unit of nuclear is lower than wind, as the large number of windmills needed to be constructed bump the worksite accident numbers. |