China's power generation is still >50% coal, so I don't know if I would call renewables "overbuilt" yet.

The main issue is that China is really big (emits around three times as much total CO2 as the US), so "38 reactors" sounds like a lot but meanwhile they're operating >1000 coal power plants.

The problem with that is all consumers ask themselves why they should pay for expensive nuclear electricity when renewables or stored renewables deliver.

We are already seeing coal plants add storage since they can’t cope with the grid demands, to squeeze a few extra years out of their legacy plants. Thats where nuclear is headed.

And nuclear doesn’t really help with cold spells, huge aircon loads or other strained situations.

Nuclear just pushes up the bottom, leaving everyone else to still solve the hard part.

> Want to build additional nuclear? First convince an investor to take the risk and operate on the free market, don't come begging the government for a giant guaranteed-profit handout.

Guess you just explained how one investor was convinced: the government.

Why? Because governments don't think in quarterly reports and short term profits, but also have to make strategic investments in stability. Ignoring the existence of baseload power needs is classical fallacy of "solar-pilled" westerners with the luxury of having 24/7 power from sources they are willing to ignore. I'm saying this with solar panels on top the house I'm living, and charging an electric car from them.

Solar and wind are not a panacea, and batteries won't solve all power needs, it is the same mindset as outsourcing polluting and humanely taxing industries to China or the third world and acting if we solved environmental or ethics problems, because we can now conveniently nott see them.

If we stop our industry, and civil infrastructure for the night, sure, no need for baseload, just some batteries... wish nobody wants to make a tea, make food, smelt aluminum at night...

> Someone could invent a magical zero-point energy warp drive and provide us with unlimited free power, and we'd still be paying for those nuclear power plants!

yes, if magic unlimited free power arrives nuclear will turn out useless

if it will not, then it provides some stability to energy grid and ensures that low polluting, resilient source of power exists

somehow I think that risk of magic unlimited free power appearing is low - and if it appears, then costs of contracted power will be now negligible

personally I prefer to pay a bit more for reduced risk of blackouts

That’s for new nuclear. Existing nuclear reactors operate on the whim of the markets.

For that we have energy futures, or just bidding negative, if you don’t want to turn off. But anyone buying the electricity will ask themselves why they should pay a premium for nuclear electricity at the height of summer when the continent is flooded with solar

Here’s an article in Swedish how a reactor was turned off for about a week due to consistently low prices. While another reactor at the same plant was already having maintenance done.

https://www.nyteknik.se/energi/forsmark-2-ur-drift-pa-agarna...

> That's a common claim but it's not really correct.

It's a common claim because it's correct.

> the average plant in the US spends it's construction costs every 2-3 years

That includes paying principal and interest on the construction loans, right?

> New power plants are much more expensive of course, because the old ones were built before Chernobyl, Fukushima, 9/11 and other incidents that revealed horrible security flaws in existing plants and procedures.

The modern cost increases have nothing to do with actual deficiencies in older US plants. Chernobyl had no containment building and a positive void coefficient. Even the US nuclear power plants build in the 1960s have a containment building and a negative void coefficient.

> Secondly, the costs of handling Chernobyl are way, way higher than the total cost of construction for all nuclear plants in the EU combined.

It's a good thing none of the US nuclear plants have ever been Soviet RBMKs then.

> And thirdly, the reason why Sweden closed the two most recent reactors was cost

The reason was that their electricity prices were very low at the time from a combination of having a large amount of hydro and the then-price of natural gas being low. Most places have no ability to control either of those things. Meanwhile how is the decision to close those reactors looking given how prices are now?

> That works for things like auxiliary pumps, but replacing the reactor vessel or control room is going to be a completely different game.

There are nuclear plants built in the 60s and 70s that are not only still operating but in the process of extending their operating licenses in order to keep operating for decades more. The period of time it takes before this makes "keep operating it" unviable is evidently pushing 80 years without actually hitting the limit.

Control rooms and reactor vessels are themselves made of modular components and a lot of maintenance to those things happens during refueling.

> On top of that it locks you in to an old reactor design, which might be very undesirable for safety reasons.

That can't be the argument against building new ones. It's the argument that what you want is to build the newer, safer designs and then operate those for a long time.