Comment by pfdietz

What knifed new nuclear in the US was not natural gas lobbyists, but natural gas prices. Quote from December 2018:

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US...

> “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.

(The Henry Hub natural gas price on 6/11/2024 was $2.71/MMBtu, or $2.17/MMBtu in Dec. 2018 dollars.)

Interest in the US "nuclear renaissance" evaporated once it became clear fracking would make natural gas cheap for the foreseeable future. What's interesting about renewables in the US is they are plowing ahead with large deployments even in the face of cheap natural gas.