> nuclear hasn't been very good at delivering them quickly or economically, unlike renewables and storage.
Kind of circular reasoning / begging the question here, since in North America we essentially stopped building nuclear over 35 years ago.[1] We stopped because people were scared of nuclear, and thus a ton of regulatory roadblocks were increased, making it uneconomic. Note that the changes in regulations post-1986 were not new regulations to improve the safety of plants, rather, they were increased environmental review burdens, state-level moratoria and voter approval requirements -- populist measures designed to do exactly what they did do: kill nuclear.[2]
So, we've chosen to not build any reactors anymore, which means comparatively little advancement is happening (since who would invest in that when no one is soliciting bids for a new plant), and then we're saying "See, nuclear isn't advancing, so we shouldn't invest in it."
[2] The 1990s saw much lower growth of electricity demand, too, so few new plants were needed during that decade, and by the time more capacity was needed, cheap shale gas drove the rest of the nails in the nuclear coffin. Of course, anti-nuclear activists who are also anti-carbon-emissions activists shouldn't count that as a win.
> We stopped because people were scared of nuclear,
This is the usual line nuclear advocates use, but it doesn't fit the facts. Nuclear stopped because it became clear it wasn't competitive with alternatives. There were large cost overruns, increased risk from demand growth slacking, and large new sources of power becoming available from PURPA and natural gas.
As the famous Forbes cover story said:
“The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent.”
Kind of circular reasoning / begging the question here, since in North America we essentially stopped building nuclear over 35 years ago.[1] We stopped because people were scared of nuclear, and thus a ton of regulatory roadblocks were increased, making it uneconomic. Note that the changes in regulations post-1986 were not new regulations to improve the safety of plants, rather, they were increased environmental review burdens, state-level moratoria and voter approval requirements -- populist measures designed to do exactly what they did do: kill nuclear.[2]
So, we've chosen to not build any reactors anymore, which means comparatively little advancement is happening (since who would invest in that when no one is soliciting bids for a new plant), and then we're saying "See, nuclear isn't advancing, so we shouldn't invest in it."
[1] https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/USN...
[2] The 1990s saw much lower growth of electricity demand, too, so few new plants were needed during that decade, and by the time more capacity was needed, cheap shale gas drove the rest of the nails in the nuclear coffin. Of course, anti-nuclear activists who are also anti-carbon-emissions activists shouldn't count that as a win.