> If you look at the price of nuclear vs. solar it just doesn't make economic sense to build nuclear anymore.

Not true. Well, unless you fall for nonsense like the Lazard "study" that looked at exactly 1 nuclear power plant, the most expensive one ever built, and used that as "the cost of nuclear". Except that wasn't enough. They also had to lower the expected life of the plant.

When you look at actual costs, nuclear LCOE is highly competitive.

When you start looking at system cost (grid, storage, overcapacity required due to intermittency) nuclear becomes an incredible bargain and renewables are completely unaffordable.

Of course you can also look at actual electricity prices: electricity in France has been cheaper than in Germany for decades. And 7x cleaner.

Let's keep things in perspective. The avg share of renewables for each month in 2024 has been about 60%. Some weeks have been as high as 75% or as low as 43% [0].

That's all great, no doubt. But nowhere near close to 95% renewable mix.

[0] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart....

>The federal government funds the system

You mean the Citizens. The Federal Government does nothing but redirect the hard work of its people or print the money, which is essentially the same as it causes inflation. If this were a solution the people actually wanted it would succeed on its own with direct ridership fees.

do not discount the addictive qualities of endless budget. The same motivations are replayed again and again, with train loads of money attached, without ceasing over years. But the markets today have evolved -- budgets are used to purchase goods and services from companies.. that benefits the government that pays them, the immediate employees, and sometimes the general public.

There has never been a time with so many people, and so few wars, relatively speaking. Why increase budgets? Why operate at an increasing loss each year waiting for giant monetary rescue? The reasons are as old as human failing, and as obvious as poor systems design, sometimes. Its a thousand roller coasters running without synchronizing, it seems.

They benefit even more by not serially starting wars all over the world in the first place.

Here's a suggestion for Europe. Keep your promises. Since the Berlin wall fell the west promised to not move their positions beyond it. They did so anyway and went all the way to the point of inviting Ukraine to join. Fast forward to Minsk accords the Germans and French admitted they were never going to abide by those terms. So the Russians have nobody in Europe that they can even deal with, since they never keep their promises. Hollande and Merkel both admitted this publicly.

My suggestiom would be to demilitarize NATO and create a new security architecture that states if you come one step westbound we will nuke you (Russians). That will be enough to appease both sides and you'll save boatloads of money from being pilfered by the west's military industrial complex.

I hate that the Ukrainians have been used as pawns in a western gambit when they could have had literally the best of both worlds. Low energy prices from the east and European culture and influences from the west. But now because of the petulant children in power in Europe they can't have any semblance of a society anymore.