[jacquesm]

This is roughly 1980. We are now in 2025. Battery tech has been increasing massively and besides that we now have HVDC tech which can transport very large amounts of energy from end of the country to another without significant losses. The whole 'baseline power' argument is getting really long in the tooth, it is mostly a matter of dogma at this point. It's not 'nukes' or 'natural gas', it's 'what is the best possible mix for this current moment in time.

The problem with nuclear power is that it is so expensive to be on standby that you need to buy their output even when you don't need it. So energy market pricing tends to be dominated by the least effective sources rather than by the most effective sources. If nuclear plants were left to fend for themselves they'd be out of business in a year. More so if you consider the cost of decommissioning.

[pfdietz]

I think storage (transport of energy in time) will beat transmission (transport in space) for users not constrained by population density.

[jacquesm]

Well, the race is definitely on. But another couple of years of reduced costs for solar and wind deployments and it may well be that nuclear projects underway will end up being cancelled before construction is complete.

[vessenes]

One really nice thing about nuclear is that the fuel is highly portable. Small reactors next to datacenters take away a lot of complexity; transport, grid connectivity, etc. Plus they're already being built in industrial-ish areas.

[klysm]

I’m not seeing HVDC tech on the interconnection queue. The baseline power problem isn’t going away any time soon.

Nuclear just doesn’t go on standby, that’s the point.