At a certain point you have to say "sorry guys, you had your try" and let the existing plants wind down. That's what's happening. Nuclear is being replaced by green generation at 6x the rate it's being lost.
I'm always amazed that many free market proponents who strongly support market solutions, are so in favour of pushing nuclear which by its nature is very monopolised reliant on subsidies, while good market solutions exist. And I say that as someone who is often sceptical of market solutions.
[1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/EE/C5EE0...
I’ve still to read the article (hopefully I can find the full text somewhere) but looks like instead of batteries they’re proposing heat-based energy storage (and radical energy use reduction).
Edit:
The study you linked to actually just summarises another study (in about as many words as I did above):
Jacobson, M.Z., M.A. Delucchi, M.A. Cameron, and B.A. Frew, 2015. A low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes, Science, in review.
- the marginal cost of energy is zero (once the investment made producing a kWh is free)
- fix costs are almost zero
For the nuclear energy we have the following:
- the marginal cost of energy is low (the cost of the uranium mostly)
- the fix costs are incredibly high (wether the reactor produce or not, the payroll is the same, the maintenance cost are the same, etc...)
So what happens: on sunny or windy days the regulation imposes solar and wind producers to curtail their production. They are forbade to distribute their free kWh, because otherwise the "baseline" producers (nuclear and coal mostly) will have to stop their facilities or sell their kWh at market price. In both cases they would lose money.
Solar and wind intermittency means the following: you cannot switch them on at will. Nuclear plants have the opposite problem: you cannot switch them off without bleeding money.
The solution for solar and wind is: install enough capacity so the worst day of the year (in winter with little wind) you produce enough to cover the needs. If you add storage and/or long distance distribution you can lower the requirement for total installed capacity.
In this context the only solution for nuclear is the following: you lobby the government to make regulations in your favor and cover your losses. Otherwise you bankrupt. On the long run I bet on bankruptcy.
We'll also see micro-storage developing to take advantage of electricity price variability. EVs will charge when electricity is cheapest, household water might be warmed during the day when solar energy is available, etc.
Unfortunately losing nuclear means that we lose the potential for a self-sufficient regional grid. But since the costs of losing base load power are largely offloaded from national budgets, instead showing up as new costs for consumers and companies, it's a lot easier for a politician to advocate for renewables. No need to spend taxpayer money on a project that won't be finished in the 4 years that matter to your government.
But we don't need 10x overbuild: the wind is always blowing somewhere. If not here, there. If not there, here or somewhere else.
No breakthroughs of any kind are needed for grid-scale storage. It is just civil engineering. It won't be batteries.
Nukes have never, at any time or place, anywhere in the world, operated without massive public subsidy. There is no reason to expect that ever to change.