> If you can find someone unsophisticated to invest in a fission reactor that takes billions of dollars and 10-15 years to build
Unsophisticated investors like the Chinese government? 'Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less.'
They dabble in nuclear, but it is not their focus. China can do what the developed world cannot because they are a command economy with less expensive labor, which will only last for a bit longer due to their structural demographics. Unless the developed world no longer has labor regulations, developed world wages, and capital based allocation systems, my statement stands with regards to investment. If capital and labor does not matter, certainly, anything is possible (Paraoh demanding pyramids, for example).
Your citation comes from an organization with pro nuclear bias.
China built more solar power in the last 8 months than all the nuclear power built in the entire world in the entire history of human civilisation. And even if you adjust for utilisation rate to compare against nuclear utilisation China built more solar power generated per hour than all the nuclear power currently in operation generate in an hour - and did so in 12-18 months - https://bsky.app/profile/climatenews.bsky.social/post/3lggqu... - January 23, 2025
If France–a country known for its strong labour laws and unions–could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any Western country can do it.
Even if the Western world lags behind due to labour regulations, the cost still pays off in the long run due to overall less complex infrastructure and stable, AC baseload power. You are thinking only about the cost of building. What about the cost of maintaining all that infrastructure? Huge solar and wind farms spread out over vast areas, essentially destroying the local ecology? NPPs have a relatively tiny footprint.
Every cited source has a bias. You think 'Clean Technica' is unbiased? Come on.
The options in the '70s were much different from those of today. And for France specifically what they have underground (lots of uranium, no oil, no gas & no coal) strongly suggested exactly one way forward.
They’re at ~60% total power from renewables in 2025, and increasing every quarter. I’d say they’re doing pretty well! The coal is unfortunate, but was due to the Ukraine war and gas situation.
This is basically nonsense to the extent that it is becoming difficult to extend the presumption of good faith to you. In the 70s solar panels cost US$25+ per peak watt, in 02021-adjusted dollars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy#/media/File:Solar...
Installing a gigawatt of solar power generation capacity for US$25 billion is in no way comparable to installing a gigawatt of solar power generation capacity for US$59 million.
Wind power has experienced a similar but less extreme cost decline.
> If France–a country known for its strong labour laws and unions–could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any Western country can do it.
France had to nationalize EDF because they could not afford the costs associated with their nuclear fleet. The 70s are 50 years in the past, and are not what the future will look like.
This is also why Spain plans to retire its remaining nuclear generators, and go all in on renewables.
Spain’s Nuclear Shutdown Set to Test Renewables Success Story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/spain-s-n... | https://archive.today/4fB7K - April 11th, 2025 (“Spain is a postcard, a glimpse into the future where you’re not going to need baseload generators from 8am to 5pm” with solar and wind providing all of the grid’s needs during that time, said Kesavarthiniy Savarimuthu, a European power markets analyst with BloombergNEF. Still, she said, there is a reasonable chance this goal may take longer than expected and “extending the life of the nuclear fleet can prove as an insurance for these delays.”) (My note: As of this comment, Spain has 7.12GW of nuclear generation capacity per ree.es, and assuming ~1GW/month deployment rate seen in Germany, could replace this capacity with solar and batteries in ~28-36 months; per Electricity Maps, only 17.25% of Spain's electrical generation over the last twelve months has been sourced from this nuclear)
Tangentially, Europe has enough wind potential to power the world, for scale.
Personally, I've invested ~500k EUR in a Portuguese Golden Visa fund invested in renewables (IRR is ~7-13%). Macro speaking, renewables investments keep hitting new records. I am convinced, and if you are not, I would strongly suggest consuming more data, because you appear to have a potential blind spot in your mental model on this topic.
Unsophisticated investors like the Chinese government? 'Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less.'
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...