I have been a big fan of nuclear for decades. But why now?

Solar with battery storage is about to be so inexpensive and rapid to deploy that perhaps 100% of new capacity should be added this way.

Start with the solar arrays and then add the batteries. They will add to the max immediately. While you are deploying the solar, batteries will improve.

With batteries, you can use solar power even at night.

Lithium batteries are already cheap enough. Sodium is going to be even cheaper and much safer to boot.

Just for comparison, China is spending $20-$30 billion a year on nuclear with 29 power plants under construction (half of world total under construction). While this $80 billion will fund about 5?

> So just how many reactors will $80 billion buy? Assuming an average of $16 billion per AP1000—slightly less than for Vogtle, and allowing for cost reductions from economies of scale and learning-by-doing—the plan would mean five new reactors. That would represent an increase of about 5.7 percent in total U.S. nuclear energy generation capacity, if all the reactors currently in service remain online.

Disclaimer: I used to work for an employee-owned nuclear energy services consultancy c. 90's comprised of mostly ex-GE NE and Mitsubishi engineers.

While I'm fine with very scrupulous megaproject nuclear sites who have many layers of checks and security processes, I'm not fine with "emperor's new clothes" throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater slapdash, unsecured SMRs in residential and urban areas managed by a startup lacking the deep bench of technical and institutional knowledge. Safety regs are written in blood.

I just don't see the ROI when an equivalent investment in pumped energy storage, hydrothermal, wind, and solar doesn't come with the same baggage that I'm afraid the current regulatory and political environment isn't interested in respecting and protecting a culture of safety.

SMRs designed, owned, and managed by industry titans never got a chance because of public relations in the day, but I think that train has sailed in the current technology and economic environment. (The AI bubble can't burst soon enough, because billionaires are driving inflation of utilities and imposing undue externalities on datacenter neighbors.)

too little too late