> >Except in some specific cases (Finland, other Arctic regions with long periods of low sunlight) I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of wind/solar/storage. Storage is the main cost barrier for 100% renewable-powered grids, but this is also an area where technological development is possible.
> Why the progress is possible only for Solar and storage and in your opinion not possible for nuclear?
Nuclear had more than triple the amount of time and significantly more subsidies for showing this technological scaling.
> Nuclear could be cheaper if people would not be paranoid about it.
People were super enthusiastic about nuclear for the first 40 years. Even after Tschernobyl nuclear opponents were largely portrait as unrealistic hippies in most countries and policies were certainly driven by people very favourable to nuclear. Even Germany one of the most nuclear sceptic countries only decided after fukushima to stop nuclear.
What is the technological breakthrough that we already know about that would suddenly change the progress massively?
>What I think could happen is this new smaller reactors could be deployed in countries more rational, irrational countries will have to buy energy from the others.
What people tend to forget is that about 40-50% of a nuclear power plant is the same as any other thermal power plant. We generally don't build small coal plants either, the scales don't work well.
The reason why wind and solar have very different scaling is because their principle of electricity generation is very different.
If you have two stocks one in exponential just starting and the other being slowly growing linearly for a long time, which one would you invest in? In particular if indications are that both stocks will continue on the same curves. That's the situation we have with nuclear vs renewables.