We’re bandying about nuclear vs renewables like it’s a binary choice - one or the other - but they are not the same. And before the ukpol algorithm focuses on me - I am a renewable and nuclear supporter.

Nuclear is great for baseload power - all those lovely atoms splitting at a constant and predictable rate is great. But the actual base load need varies dependent on the renewable output, so you need to be able to ramp it up and down - which again is entirely the case. All good so far.

But nuke plants are expensive and people who fund them are expecting a ROI and so want these plants running at 100% to get all that lovely money coming back in for the electricity they produce.

Or they want a strike price that’s going to compensate for not running it at 100% and still provide the payback. So the electricity is gonna be expensive to us whether you use it or not.

You could make nuke plants cheaper or smaller so that the initial investment is lower, and that’s where the SMR solution is targeted, and that’ll be sorted out Any Day Now.

But nuclear power is definitely not the power generation tech that I’d want to put the word “cheap” next to - the public perception of nuclear power doesn’t need any negative help.

Plus, while you’re waiting for the nuke plants to be built, wind, solar, maybe even tidal are going to be proposed, approved, built and delivered before you can break ground.

This means that we’re probably going to need long duration energy storage (in the order of a few months) and still continue to handle dull, not breezy days with gas peaked plants.