Nuclear power, despite its larger costs, is the only form of non-intermittent green energy production other than geographically limited options like dams and geothermal. Once wind and solar start saturating energy markets during peak hours of production, each new wind and solar plant has diminishing returns. While the plants themselves are expensive, producing wind and solar power at large scale and offsetting intermittency incurs costs in the form of increased transmission capacity and storage requirements.

People really often don't comprehend just how titanic the storage requirements are just to provision half a day's worth of energy to offset daily solar fluctuations. The globe currently uses 60 TWh of electricity per day. That's 30,000 GWh for 12 hours of storage. Keep in mind, electricity is only about half our total energy use, heating and transportation also need to be electrified which will drive this number up. And lastly, diurnal storage isn't the only storage we'll need. We'll also need seasonal storage to offset weather fluctuations.

When we stop asking "what's the most cost-efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions by a percent or two?" and start asking "how will we build a 100% carbon-free grid?" nuclear becomes a much more attractive option.