Nuclear only survives when politicians go out of their way to push it.
Nuclear is unpopular because it competes for the same pool of money as gas, oil, solar, wind, etc do and there is no, or a very narrow band, of investors whose priorities align with the benefits nuclear provides.
They need to prioritize environmental friendliness enough to eliminate the fossil fuel options. Then they need to be willing to put in massive sums of money in one shot, without seeing any returns for many years, to even beginning to choose nuclear, and then they need to find a reason why they would pick nuclear over solar/wind in a world which is over 80% fossil fuel so baseload electricity is not even close to being a concern. And if their particular region has baseload energy concerns, they need to choose the long term option of nuclear over the quicker solar/wind + battery option which even if it is slightly more expensive isnt by much.
The only places where nuclear has gone forward are areas where politicians have pushed for it despite it being more expensive than other renewable alternatives. Examples are in the UK, and even there the plants are delayed, and are gonna be more expensive than originally planned even when the original price was already more than competing renewables.
It's true for classical nuclear reactors as far as I can tell.
But in recent years there had been many advances wrt. other kinds of nuclear reactors which often promise less (or even much less) risc, upfront cost, start/stop times and generally smaller size.
This kind of "small" nuclear reactors can have the potential to be in some cases the best choice.
Anyway best would be of politician let this play out fairly by not pushing any specific technology but just pushing "climate-friendly" energy while punishing (separately) both "climate-unfriendly", "environmental-unfriendly" technology. (Nuclear is climate-friendly but environmental or better human unfriendly).
Nuclear is unpopular because it competes for the same pool of money as gas, oil, solar, wind, etc do and there is no, or a very narrow band, of investors whose priorities align with the benefits nuclear provides.
They need to prioritize environmental friendliness enough to eliminate the fossil fuel options. Then they need to be willing to put in massive sums of money in one shot, without seeing any returns for many years, to even beginning to choose nuclear, and then they need to find a reason why they would pick nuclear over solar/wind in a world which is over 80% fossil fuel so baseload electricity is not even close to being a concern. And if their particular region has baseload energy concerns, they need to choose the long term option of nuclear over the quicker solar/wind + battery option which even if it is slightly more expensive isnt by much.
The only places where nuclear has gone forward are areas where politicians have pushed for it despite it being more expensive than other renewable alternatives. Examples are in the UK, and even there the plants are delayed, and are gonna be more expensive than originally planned even when the original price was already more than competing renewables.