Comment by JumpCrisscross
11 days ago
> Which is exactly what happened
The other side of that coin was Westinghouse realising there is no market for civil nuclear power in North America or Europe at this time on account of the newfound alliance between wind and gas.
Where can I learn about the alliance between wind and gas?
It's not a conspiracy, it's just an observation that the two technologies play well together. Also, natural gas is very cheap in the US. This latter fact rather than nefarious conspiracies or regulatory evil is why the "nuclear renaissance" collapsed here when the fracking revolution occurred. An efficient combined cycle gas fired power plant might cost $1/W(e), an order of magnitude lower capital cost than a nuclear plant. If the fuel for such a plant is cheap then nuclear is presented with an insuperable economic obstacle.
Combustion turbines are amazing technological achievements. It's ironic that one technology with military roots, nuclear fission, has been unseated by another technology with military roots, combustion turbines by way of jet engines.