it sounds like a reasonable enough measure, but even in its devil-may-care heyday, nuclear energy never undercut coal's pricing by much. now that solar energy is far cheaper than coal ever was, this seems like they're trying to fight last century's war: a bayonet charge into a machine gun nest
basically a nuclear power plant is a coal power plant which replaces a coal fire with the nuclear island. you can describe it most charitably as a coal power plant where the fuel is free and doesn't make carbon dioxide or pollute the air. the problem is that coal power plants would already be too expensive to compete with solar on a pure capex basis, even if the coal and other operational expenses were free
maybe if someone finds a way to make commercial nuclear power that doesn't involve driving an electromechanical generator with a steam turbine, nuclear could win. and obviously undersea and in parts of alaska nuclear is a better option
basically a nuclear power plant is a coal power plant which replaces a coal fire with the nuclear island. you can describe it most charitably as a coal power plant where the fuel is free and doesn't make carbon dioxide or pollute the air. the problem is that coal power plants would already be too expensive to compete with solar on a pure capex basis, even if the coal and other operational expenses were free
maybe if someone finds a way to make commercial nuclear power that doesn't involve driving an electromechanical generator with a steam turbine, nuclear could win. and obviously undersea and in parts of alaska nuclear is a better option
(i wrote a comment earlier tonight on the recent history of solar energy costs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40723188 and its parent has a link to an excellent slide deck by fraunhofer ise https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p... providing a lot more detail)