It was my belief since many years that nuclear run out of runway a long time ago. It seems to be true even for 20-year old projects such as this, but is even more so for every single nuclear project if it starts today, in any country.
Hinkley Point C may be an outlier because large public projects in UK are famously corrupt and dysfunctional, but even in countries with no red tape and no "society" as we know it, where all-powerful government can just cut through things at will, nuclear takes 15-20 years to work. In 2040s, there will be no place for it left. And unlike many future projections, this one involves a lot of things that are already baked in such as existing solar and storage costs and already committed investments into supply chain: even if the technology and economics of wind and especially of solar do not improve a bit from where they are, they will still dwarf every other generation and make nuclear unneeded in every country capable of building it (and even more so in countries that aren't).
anovikov•1h ago
Hinkley Point C may be an outlier because large public projects in UK are famously corrupt and dysfunctional, but even in countries with no red tape and no "society" as we know it, where all-powerful government can just cut through things at will, nuclear takes 15-20 years to work. In 2040s, there will be no place for it left. And unlike many future projections, this one involves a lot of things that are already baked in such as existing solar and storage costs and already committed investments into supply chain: even if the technology and economics of wind and especially of solar do not improve a bit from where they are, they will still dwarf every other generation and make nuclear unneeded in every country capable of building it (and even more so in countries that aren't).