I have read the study you cite. I don't question whether you've read the full study or only the news story, but the study has quite a few flaws and (what I view as) false assumptions. I'll argue against the news story, so I'm sure not to exclude anybody.

>Nuclear and other renewables don't co-exist well, and both lead to lock-in and path dependancies

Why should they co-exist? If you have 100% of your electricity generated by nuclear power, that is literally zero sense in buying wind turbines.

The path dependancies are obvious: Wind farms require infrastructure that can handle 100% of the total power output, but will only see around 30-40% average capacity used. This requires a larger, decentral power grid, with a ton of resources poured into additional load balancing, as well as storage in times of low wind.

Modern nuclear power has a capacity factor of >90%. It requires the grid to be dimensioned to the needed power; not huge spikes in production. It doesn't require storage and it doesn't require expensive balancing systems, needed for intermittent sources of energy.

>Countries with high GDP and nuclear lower their CO2-emissions slower than similar countries with other renewables

In Denmark, our taxes on energy has increased tremendously alongside the roll-out of "cheap" renewables. This obviously changes demand, which is why the study is indeed correlative.

And in Denmark we're cheating right now: Our biofuels (mainly wood from Estonia and the US) count as zero emissions, since they "grow back in 60 years". This type of fraudulent behaviour changes our balance sheet. And even with our massive expansion of wind energy, our average CO2-emissions per kWh of electricity used is still around 3-6x that of Sweden.

To the question of something being "true 50 years ago, but not true in the last 30 years", look to figure 2 in the link below and you will see how your statement is not correct.

The figure (and the article it originates from) clearly argues that e.g. my country of birth, Denmark, which has spent an incredibly large amount of money (relative to the size of our economy) propping up the wind industry and constructing large wind farms, have been much* slower at adding non-carbon energy sources to the production of electricity.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/547.figures-...

I know how Sweden produces its electricity, but I don't know what makes hydro relevant here? I am purely talking about the Swedish expansion of nuclear power, which was the fastest expansion of stable green electricity production in the world, to date. That it happened more than 30 years ago only begs the question, as to how no one has caught up to that yet.

Having asked the Swedish state nuclear authority about the possibility of expanding nuclear power, they state that given a positive political climate (e.g. removing red tape and vetocracy, but keeping a high level of safety), they could roll out new reactors in around 5 years, at $4100 pr. kW capacity. This is 10-30% cheaper than 2020 off-shore wind farms – without solving the storage issue!

For me, climate change is a serious issue, requiring serious solutions. This is where I see nuclear energy. All the talk of "slow roll-out" simply goes against the facts and oddly enough, the same people are also against rolling it out – talk about correlation!

Nuclear has the stability, economics and climate factors right. And newer technologies will only make this better. It must be done in a safe way. We can't have old plants not being maintained properly.

No new power plants have been built in the EU or US for the last 30 years, which has lead to brain drain in the industry. Newer plants might cost more in the start, but that too will level off. The same argument that one uses for their own preferred tech mustn't be forgotten for the opposing side.

I understand that you are invested in this debate, but it is simply indefensible to make these types of straw-man arguments. If you want to criticise nuclear power, try making a steel-man argument and argue against that. This is far more efficient – and respectful to your debate partner - than speaking against concrete facts.