Nuclear energy is green and it’s very reliable. The problem is that people seem to think wind is a good idea, when it’s really a highly visible form of greenwashing.
Let's not downplay the simple fact that wind energy has the lowest levelized cost of electricty and has for over a decade now (in the US and AFAIK on average worldwide, not universally). As an intermittent source it's never going to be a silver bullet, but it's hardly surprising that a power source that's not just cheap but also has a long track record of being _consistently_ cheap gets a lot of usage. And the only other real competition is solar, which would likely have the same issues as wind in the specific case of the original article.
Much as nuclear energy is both green, reliable and safe - it's also hard to imagine it becoming cost-competitive at the scale that wind and solar are. Better regulation might help a bit, but even in places like South Korea where nuclear costs are unusually low and solar/wind costs unusually high they're basically competitive - and I wouldn't be surprised for solar+wind to fall in price there too, once they've slightly more mass in the market.
The focus on wind+solar over nuclear is less due to greenwashing that due to penny-pinching.
$4 billion for 500MW, or $8 per watt. That's 2-4x the cost per watt of solar.
That's not as bad as I expected, and probably looks even better when you factor in the difference in uptime (e.g. including storage into the cost of solar).
By "green" are you referring to the radioactive sludge it produces? ;)
I'm not anti-nuclear energy, but it comes with a host of problems and costs that many nuclear energy supporters tend to gloss right over. Chief among them is that no one wants these facilities in their backyard or anywhere near their backyard. Part of this is just NIMBY-ism, but the other part is a well-warranted fear of an accident or negligence leading to contamination. It's all great until the private equity firms take over.
Sorry, it felt like some kind of a leading "gotcha" question. Why are you wondering about nuclear power in Spain, specifically? And why only from someone living there? Both seem entirely out of context with the discussion thread, which didn't mention Spain before your comment.
If you want details from someone who can do a quick Google search, instead, I offer: It seems like there was a politically led moratorium for several decades, then allowed but regulated into impracticality. Meanwhile the reactors they built have operated well for about 40 years and provide a large portion of the country's annual electrical generation.
Much as nuclear energy is both green, reliable and safe - it's also hard to imagine it becoming cost-competitive at the scale that wind and solar are. Better regulation might help a bit, but even in places like South Korea where nuclear costs are unusually low and solar/wind costs unusually high they're basically competitive - and I wouldn't be surprised for solar+wind to fall in price there too, once they've slightly more mass in the market.
The focus on wind+solar over nuclear is less due to greenwashing that due to penny-pinching.