The technology is too expensive is utter nonsense.
Nuclear is maybe the most cost effective energy source humanity has, France win tons of money by selling exceeding energy production to e.g germany.
With that statement in mind, could you explain the economics of Hinkley C? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
The bad economics isn't a new problem. Washington Public Power Supply System planned to build five nuclear reactors in the 1970's. They managed to finish one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNP-3_and_WNP-5
It seems to me nuke plants only get finished when corners are cut or everything goes to plan. If there are any problems at all the costs and issues spiral out of control. That says to me that these things are barely within our industrial capabilities to build.
Long answer short: Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries which have direct fossil reserves.
Nuclear is cost competitive but is an ultra long term investment (60/100 years lifespan for a power plant) And the construction cost is huge.
A fascinating thing to note is that today New power plants cost between 4000 and 5000 $ per KWe. As science and experience improve you would expect like everywhere else, for prices to go down. But it's the reverse, in 1960s power plants had a cost of 1500$ per KWe!!! This is sad and mostly explained by overengeenered security specifications. If we could make again such efficiency today, nuclear would be by FAR the cheapest energy source.
Still, Chinese and South Korea achieve 3000$ per KWe efficiency (making it for them the cheapest energy source by a significant amount) And 2 new promising reactor designs target sub 2500$ per KWe.
Among future reactor designs, they can have some of those advantages: Less or no wastes. Guaranted safety (auto shutdown by design) Ability to desalinate water or produce hydrogen for free Ability to use thorium making nuclear almost a renewable energy source (enough for 2000 years of energy supply for all humanity) And potential costs savings: Less employee (700 per power plant is a valid number today) More efficiency: from 33% to 45%
Source for many things: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-a...
That doesn't make sense: Countries that have reserves can sell them at the exact price that countries without pay. The comparison with nuclear cannot logically be different for those two cases.
Also, producer reduce supply when they use their own product, which pushes prices up and reduces the difference in costs for the fuel (non-producers also drive up the price a when they buy, but that doesn’t help them).
I doubt either of those effects is particularly significant, but they aren’t nothing.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Strike_price_deal_for_H...