Why do we need to look 50 years back when China is doing the same right now? Maybe we should start learning from them?

Yes learning from China is banking on renewables. Their nuclear build out is behind schedule and the ambitions are being reduced because it makes so much more sense to build renewables.

China added 277GWh of solar (45% increase) and 80 GW of wind (+18%) in 2024 compared to 3.9 GW of nuclear (+3%).

While the percentage of nuclear power of overall electricity generation was increasing between 2012 and 2020 it is falling again. The national plan was for 200 GW of generation capacity from nuclear by 2035, that less than what was added from solar alone in 2024 and unlikely to happen (approved projects would add another 60 GW to the current 60 GW total in the next 5 years, but it is not clear if they will be build).

Sources https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/chin...

https://energyandcleanair.org/analysis-clean-energy-contribu...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

The article describes how France helped China reach that point. I did not know that.

France had their construction boom earlier, so they're ahead of the curve. The article suggests that the secret of cheap reactor construction is mostly economies of scale: if one reactor is too expensive, buy fifty instead.

China has been reducing approvals for new reactors in recent years, to the point where the share of nuclear electricity generation is actually going down. Maybe 40 years down the line, they'll want to build just one more reactor to deal with increased demand and discover that the supply chain has atrophied so the project becomes an expensive boondoggle.