The costs are largely political. For example, France has invested heavily in nuclear and has one of the lowest operating costs per kilowatt hour. In the US, the cheapest option is geothermal, but it is location dependent. Solar and wind follow a similar pattern, with a highly varying operating cost depending on region. Either of those could potentially lose investors money, ( especially solar thermal ) and they have more reason to wait until the price of solar panels goes down.

In terms of ROI, natural gas is the most cost effective option in the US with an average LCOE of $73/MWh, and they don't have to be geographically located.
[eia.gov]

If the US had a carbon tax like other countries do, then that could change.

@Happy_Killbot - And like I said, the red tape, which contains the political cost, isn't going away. As long as people are divided on nuclear, which isn't going to change, politicians stand to lose reelection if they support actual nuclear projects. They can give it lip service, but if they actually move projects forward, they screw themselves. Fission is dead.

@davyjones And yet the US navy maintains 71 nuclear submarines, 9 more under construction, and 11 nuclear aircraft carriers. If any politician says anything against the military, they will be kicked out almost as fast as if they criticize Israel. What's really keeping them in office is the ignorance of the people.

@Happy_Killbot - So what's your point? I'm not saying that current policy is or isn't right. I'm just saying it is what it is. Step one on fixing things is getting the profiteering out of politics, & step one is fixing the education system. Neither is likely in my lifetime, & neither can happen without the other. I can only deal with reality as it is, rather than what I might like it to be. Under current policy, it is unlikely we'll ever get a new fission plant built for public utilities, so why dwell on it? Rather than waste any effort on what is effectively a dead technology, maybe put more effort into supporting & educating people on technologies that are actually being built, are actually cost effective in this reality, and can actually end the use of fossil fuels.

@davyjones If you make everything a priority, nothing is. Policy can change, and that starts with education and spread of information. Once fossil fuels are no longer commercially viable, we effectively are left with 4 options, with nuclear being the most powerful and reliable, no contest. I far as I know, nuclear is the ONLY carbon neutral option that can effectively meet our power needs without obliterating the environment. Personal, I consider this countries irrational fear of nuclear to be on par with our proclivity to believe in flat earth, anti-vax, and 911 conspiracy.

@Happy_Killbot - Unlike fission, solar & wind are commercially viable & can easily meet our power needs without obliterating the environment. They are already more cost effective than coal. They are so much more cost effective than fission as to make the comparison absolutely laughable. They will be cost competitive with natural gas in North America within a decade & are already cheaper in most of the rest of the world. Renewables are getting cheaper every year & will continue to do so for at least a century, which can't be said for any non-renewable power source, including fission.

Regarding reliability, when is the last time the sun failed to rise on schedule? When is the last time the earth stopped rotating? Solar & wind power are as reliable as that.

How much space do solar panels actually need? Check the link (you can skip to 3:10 if you want), & keep in mind, the technology has progressed quite a bit in the 4 years since the video went live.

@davyjones It's more complicated than that, The map makes it look deceptively small but that is still a huge land area we have to clear, and that still assumes best case scenario. Elon Musk is just trying to sell you something and probably influence government policy. At night, solar doesn't work. At peak energy use times, solar doesn't work. If you live in Alaska, that surface area isn't going to cut it and probably doesn't factor in increased maintenance costs due to rain and snow. If your solar panels are covered in snow, they won't work. Electrical power has a relatively short range due to resistance losses, which means power is best consumed close to where it is produced, and when it is produced. Keep in mind I'm not saying that solar and wind is wrong or bad, I'm just saying nuclear is a key ingredient to reduce long term costs and short term reliability.

Just to show the assumptions they are making, I will use the solar effectiveness map from this link to calculate land area from New york, and LA
[downstreamconstruction.com]
New York: 4.5 Kwh/m2
LA: 6.5 Kwh/m2
US electricity use: 4.18 trillion Kwh

land use at New York rate: 9.28910^11 m2 = 35864 mi2
land use at LA rate: 6.43010^11 m2 = 24829 mi2

for comparison, the state of Indiana is 35,870 mi2 and West Virginia is 24,087 mi2

if we used 1000 Mw nuclear reactor operating at 90% load 24/7 each taking up only one square mile, meaning you only need 530 mi2.

@Happy_Killbot - It is more complicated, I agree. Industrial batteries can buffer peak times & night time. Battery types could include any combination of Lithium Ion, Lead Acid, Geothermal Battery, Molten Sodium, & Gravity type, just to list a few types that are readily available now. This doesn't even get into future battery tech that's coming. Wind power is also reliable & predictable in certain regions. A wind generator's wind speed sweet spot is anywhere from 4 to 12 mph, so a gentle breeze is all those need. Alaska has plenty of wind as well as a ton of tidal energy they can tap into. There are plenty of viable ways to generate clean power, so we don't need to rely on any one of them. Fission just happens to be the most expensive one by a mile. Why push outdated, overpriced, politically suicidal tech when we have far better solutions available now? All of the big energy companies already see the writing on the wall. Where are their investment dollars going? It's not fission. The reality is there isn't a single strong argument in favor of fission left.

Here are 3 recent examples in reality of where things are shifting.

[seattletimes.com]

[utilitydive.com]

[mprnews.org]

@davyjones I already debunked the expensive nuclear myth, solar thermal is the most expensive. It's expensive to build, but cheap to operate. [realclearenergy.org]

Comparing coal to nuclear is a false analogy, nuclear was better than coal in the 70's.

Ignoring the nuclear option is a fools game, because the competition isn't between nuclear and renewable, it's between nuclear and natural gas. If we don't maintain nuclear, then natural gas will have to pick up the slack, effectively eliminating any and all environmental benefits.

[grist.org]

@Happy_Killbot - Well, the reality is fission will never be viable from a regulatory standpoint alone. The politicians won't touch it. The regulators are appointed by the politicians. The public at large won't touch it. The corporations won't touch it. The investors won't touch it. Coal will gradually continue to increase in cost, along with natural gas & oil. We have massive supplies of all three though, so any supply shortages will be artificially fabricated. Renewables will continue to decrease in cost drastically over the long term, as well as storage technologies. Fission is irrelevant. That's the reality. Be blindly optimistic in one hand & shit in the other...

It is often joked that fusion power is 20 years away and always will be. At any rate, waiting to jump straight from fossil fuels to fusion isn't a good plan, so switching to nuclear now is probably still a better option.

[theguardian.com]

@Archeus_Lore From that article: "Prof Wilson was also cautious about the timeframe, saying that while the project was exciting he couldn’t see how it would achieve its goal of putting energy on the grid within 15 years."

Although I would not be sad if it did become a reality, I would remain highly skeptical of such a short transformation.

You are welcome to be sceptical. I in turn am sceptical of nuclear power plants and their safety. I have actually worked in several, and, even though their safety rules are very strict, Murphy's law has a way of getting around that, and all it takes is one accident to have a fucking disaster like Fukishima.

@Archeus_Lore If you have worked in a nuclear power plant you may have heard of "Switch theory" that proposes that any catastrophe is never the result of a single point cause, but rather a series of missteps that could have been avoided the closer you get to t = 0.

For Fukushima, I would make a chain like this: Reactor is designed -> lead engineers resignation after safety concerns is ignored -> Reactors are constructed with bad information about fault lines -> fault line information is updated, reactors continue to operate without upgrades -> plants not shut down promptly and prepared for decay heat removal on increased siesmic activity -> tsunami hits -> decay heat removal is not established prior to batteries dying due to flooded diesel -> meltdown in cores, hydrogen explosion and fission product release.

You remove any of those steps or correct any of those deficiencies, there would be no accident.

I would never agree with such a narrow interpretation of Murphy's Law.

If any type of fusion power becomes a commercially viable option, cold or otherwise, that would change everything and fossil fuels, nuclear, and even green technologies could just be thrown out the window. I will however, remain skeptical of some actors claiming cold fusion because the results of the cold fusion experiments have never been reproduced, and it's history is thus far mangled with what seems to be malicious actors.