[danans]

> The vast majority is financing.

The financing for nuclear is expensive primarily because:

1) The costs of construction are so high - so huge amounts of financing needed.

2) The amount of time before investors see any ROI is very long.

A long time ago, when electricity markets were fully monopolized end to end, the long-term ROI on nuclear and other generating assets was guaranteed by the government, and the financial risk was borne by society.

Now, electricity markets have been liberalized (at least at the generation level). Simultaneously, far less capital-intensive generation technologies have been created (renewables, combined-cycle gas, and increasingly storage). These technologies provide an earlier ROI for risk-averse capitalists.

[bborud]

And as Bent Flyvbjerg mentions in "How Big Things Get Done", projects that last for a very long time are all but guaranteed to encounter one or more black swan events and/or recessions.

Bent makes a sensible argument for SMR reactor technology in that book too.