[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k
[2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Energy-and-Civilization
One way to answer that question is to ponder the following question - if we can reduce the price 90% of the time by say half, how much are you willing to pay for power in the remaining 10% of the time?
There are a multitude of technical solutions.
But you can only see them if you actually look for them. If you're down in a nuclear 24/7-constant-output-except-for-one-refueling-month-per-year pit, then you can't.
Cheap renewables are going to be favoured by the marked forces. Yes, we need to solve the gaps, but will just have to do so. Nuclear can't do it, so there's really little room for nuclear in the future.
As for cheap renewables being favored: check out this other thread about Californians banning new solar installations in the desert [1]. As we ramp wind and solar from 3% of total energy (not just electricity) towards 100%, you can bet you'll see significant NIMBY stuff at work. Plus, what are you going to do with the waste from all the gargantuan retiring solar and win farms and chemical battery systems?
You mention that nuclear can't do it without substantiating it. Care to expand on why that'd be impossible? France and Ontario are doing pretty well in the decarbonized world at the moment thanks to nuclear. [2]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277653 [2] https://www.electricitymap.org/
South Korean reactors in UAE are behind schedule. China takes 6 years to build reactors in China and their costs aren't very transparent due to opaque government and censored press. Russia takes even longer to build reactors in Russia and abroad. India takes a decade+ to finish a reactor. France can't build their new reactors swiftly or affordably, either in Finland or in France. We all know how Westinghouse's AP1000 has fared in South Carolina, Georgia, and China.
Ontario experienced drastic cost overruns building the Darlington reactors in the first place and rejected new Darlington reactors a decade ago because the projected costs were too high.
The Ontario government put its nuclear power plans on hold last month because the bid from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the only "compliant" one received, was more than three times higher than what the province expected to pay, the Star has learned.
Sources close to the bidding, one involved directly in one of the bids, said that adding two next-generation Candu reactors at Darlington generating station would have cost around $26 billion.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...
I have some hopes that small modular reactors will eventually break out of the rut of disappointment that recent Western reactor projects have furrowed. I'm not trusting anybody's cost/schedule estimates until some SMR projects are actually in commercial operation.
Finally, if NIMBY is a legitimate obstacle to renewable projects, it's also a legitimate obstacle to nuclear projects. (I think that NIMBY is not a good reason to block either renewable facilities or nuclear plants, but I'm not King of Earth.)
[1] You might think that requiring swift completion on top of affordability is excessive, but my view is that Western projects that aren't fast will become expensive as well. Even projects that never get within earshot of the NRC, like building transmission lines or refurbishing bridges, are very predictably expensive if they stretch beyond 5 years.
We've detached ourselves totally from the material world. Everyone is a money massager or investment banker. But point is that everything has been made by someone somewhere. Primary iron (electric arc furnace, in US is recycled) 1 billion tonnes of coke per year to make primary iron in China. 1.6 B tonnes of steel. Cement: 4.2 B tonnes/year with the worst possible fuel. 300 M t plastics. And ammonia. Without these there are no roads and buildings and metal. These are fundamental pillars of civilization that have no non-fossil sources. Carnegie melon made 5 g of iron by reducing with hydrogen. So how do you replace 4 pillars of civilization in scale with something non-carbon? DR Congo have lots of hydro. There could be a lot of hydro building there. India has some coal, they will burn all of it. Indian coal is low quality. Until at least 2047 coal will be primary source of India energy. You don't want to think about future of energy in Africa. If you have 0.5 Billion in Nigeria. If you want sleepless nights, think about Nigeria. Cleave it any way and it will have half a billion. No reliable electricity in the capital. To answer your question he has no idea, it's a nightmare. Lots of cleavages. One big river is drying out. Sunshine isn't going to carry the civilization.