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Nuclear energy is only expensive when it's sabotaged, introducing unnecessary costs in construction:
Only a factor of 4! Factor of 4 price difference within the same country is insane to think about. There was a huge spike in the cost of building reactors after three mile island (where no radiation was released and nobody died) in the US because of dumb regulations. They didn't allow any new construction for decades, preventing learning by doing. In fact, they complicated construction, demanding redesigns and tearing out parts to be replaced. Thus factor of 12 price difference in construction costs. This had nothing to do with EROEI since Korea is unaffected by US stupidity but would be affected by energy prices (since they import their fuels).
Nuclear plants can run for sixty years if designed properly (and not shut down early by Greens). They absolutely are profitable, even in the US.
See page 388, it's right there in black and white, plant profitability. If it's in brackets, it's unprofitable for the year, paying off fuel, operations and capital. If not, it's profitable. 2020 was a bad year because of low demand so no plant was profitable. But see all the years before, especially 2008! On the whole, nuclear plants are profitable, even in tough market conditions.
https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2021/2021q3-som-pjm-sec7.pdf
And if they're profitable in the US, they're profitable in the rest of the world where things are run much more competently. These plants include many victims of the factor-of-12-megasabotage campaign.
Radioactive material stuck in the environment has negligible cost, just stick it in a box and leave the boxes in a desert. The quantities are so small it's trivial to deal with but everyone is addicted to bungling, building long-term storage complexes like Yucca mountain and then not using them.
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