| >> and also requires way less (if any) contribution from other sources. > This part is wrong. France used to provide 75% of their electricity demand from Nuclear. Add their hydro power, and it was 85-90%. I'm not aware of any other country reaching similar figures using wind/solar, ever. Some countries (like Denmark) have surpassed 50% from wind/solar, but at least in the case of Denmark, that relies heavily on supplementing it with hydropower from Norway/Sweden. > On a local scale, renewables aren't predictable, but over large areas .... The continent wide grid capacity needed for this is not only expensive, it's also fragile. If you add the extra grid costs to wind and solar, it's no longer very cheap. Nuclear also benefits from a grid, but rely a lot less on it than wind/solar does. Even if you cut off the grid (due to an EU breakup, let's say), countries with nuclear power would be fine. > I find it somewhat hard to believe that nuclear plants could easily be made dramatically cheaper Almost anything of that sort CAN be made a lot cheaper, as long as a free market is allowed to operate and economies of scale are achieved. On top of that, technological progress makes it possible to get more from less over time (including safety). As for China and India, well China IS building a lot more Nuclear than anyone else (probably everyone else combined). Cost estimations for them are uncertain, but seem cheaper than Korea. (Korean prices are assumed to be ~$40/MWh). I believe that there is a lot left on the table in terms of efficiencies to be gained if competition and innovation across countries were encouraged, but even if you chose NOT to believe that, well at least nuclear has shown that it can deliver up to 75%. Wind + solar has not shown anything similar, at least not yet. |