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In Europe, lobbyists are using soaring fuel prices to make the case for more dirty energy
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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In many countries it is possible to build new nuclear plants. They haven’t been built due to economics. When you say the costs are comparable with renewables, the market obviously doesn’t think so.
I never said cost is comparable. It is not, in Europe more so than other countries. Nonetheless you are not paying the cost of the nuclear power plant, you are paying the price of electricity. And nuclear lower the price of electricity (see Finland) reason why petrol state like UAE, or china built nuclear power plant. The cost of nuclear in china is competitive with renewable. China is building 28 new reactors, with 59 already built (average construction time of 6 years and 3 billions dollars each). Not every country can build a nuclear power plant: your grid need to support the massive amount of energy produced by a nuclear power plant, your country need to support the massive upfront cost to build one, your country need to be stable, reliable and not encounter opposition from international organizations as nuclear power plant could be used to produce nuclear weapons, and finally you need to have domestic support for nuclear energy and political commitment across the political spectrum for years to make the necessary regulatory commitment.This makes it very hard to have the condition to build one. Furthermore you have a real advantage if you have the domestic know how in your country, and most simply do not have that.
I’m not arguing the value of nuclear power it is really that the pointy heads can’t see that it is competitive with renewables. Personally I think that as renewables get to saturation then we will work out where we need continuous power generation. The trouble with nuclear is that 10-30 year lead time is difficult to commit to such an uncertain future.
I mean, it does not need to be 10-30 years. UAE deployment was from nothing (literally nothing), to first reactor connected in 12 years. The first first years were just for regulation and selecting a partner. Construction took 8 years. The median time for reactor deploy in Japan, Korea and China is 52 months, 65 months, and 68 months respectively, with China getting faster and faster. US and UK are the odd one out, with some deploy taking 513 month and 282 month respectively.
If the EU reform nuclear regulation on the continent and promote nuclear deployment in Italy, Poland, and Germany that would help a lot. The US needs to undergone a similar transformation.
My argument is still that the investment in nuclear is fairly long and all through that renewable generation is eating up the margin that a reactor needs to make money. Investors see that as uncertainty and won’t invest. That appears to be the main reason why there not a lot of interest.