This is an incredibly weak argument, as most of the opposition to nuclear power even before widespread renewable deployment was political, not economic. Maybe the economics have changed with renewables, but that needs to be proved rather than can be inferred by the lack of US reactors being built.
Take Germany’s recent denuclearization, the efforts are completely political, there was no mention of balance sheet optimizations or concerns. China, India, Russia, among others are all building reactors - either we must agree they are fiscally irrational, or realize that there is an economic case to be made for nuclear power.
>most of the opposition to nuclear power even before widespread renewable deployment was political, not economic.
Most of the opposition to nuclear power was about a whole lot of things other than politics or economics. Decades of quantifiable failure after failure in the environmental, construction quality, maintenance, radioactive discharge, siting-safety, and waste-handling realms, to name just a few. Everywhere the problems were the same, whether they were covered-up or not. The problems were those of an arrogant energy industry primarily concerned with minimizing expenses. The facts weren't political ... although the many, many cover-ups certainly were.
To overlook all that history and suggest that nuclear is just a political football is absurd. Had it been a quantifiable success, little of the resistance would have evolved. And Karen Silkwood might not have died. There was a lot of money and power at stake, and little tolerance for realistic concerns. The industry earned the disrespect it continues to enjoy.
Remember the widespread promise "Too cheap to meter"? In what year was that promise kept?
I agree the take above was reductive, especially in truncating the historical aspects of nuclear power, so much so that in the general case it is incorrect. Collective amnesia is not a solution to yesterday’s nightmares.
I think there is hope that the new generation of nuclear scientists and companies have learned lessons, and I support giving them regulated room to prove it. America has a lot of bad energy policy (Fracking, mountaintop mining, to name a couple in addition to your comment’s nuclear perspective) - improving on that is important, but making it worse is not acceptable (Nor am I a fan of gambling with such large minimum bets).
Irrespective of my failures, the core of the original critique I think stands insofar as the argument it was responding to was not self-sustaining.
Edit: I don’t mean to age you, but I am honestly too young to remember “Too cheap to meter”. I can see where historical memory, or the lack thereof, has colored our respective perspectives, though, in important ways
Take Germany’s recent denuclearization, the efforts are completely political, there was no mention of balance sheet optimizations or concerns. China, India, Russia, among others are all building reactors - either we must agree they are fiscally irrational, or realize that there is an economic case to be made for nuclear power.