Comment by mpweiher

> It takes 10-20 years to build a new nuclear plant

This, again, is not true. The average is currently at 6.5 years and dropping slightly, the time has been fairly consistent over the last decades.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

The main factor determining build times appears to be "how much do you want to?". France built 50+ reactors in a total of 15 years, the fastest build times are Japan, South Korea, China and Germany.

Secondary factors are "is this a FOAK build or NOAK", and "how much experience is there building nuclear plants". When Japan was good it built in under 4 years, and had plans to go below 3. And no, that's not detrimental to safety.

> and use just isn't that important of a factor.

It is when land is expensive.

> With the electrification of cars and so on, the grid has to be modernized no matter what.

Typical dodge into the qualitative: the additional grad capacity required to ship power across the country from where it is produced to where it is needed is a multiple of that required to strengthen it for additional consumers. Never mind the whole "smart grid" madness.

> Most of the time nuclear also doesn't pay for decommissioning and nuclear waste etc. by itself.

That's also false. These costs are almost always included and have little impact on the total cost of power. For example, the Gösgen plant in Switzerland produces for 4,34 Rappen / kWh, including all costs and including a profit.

> At the same time a lot of renewable projects right now are also profitable without subsidize

That's also not true. When subsidies for off-shore wind were reduced, Germany, Denmark and the UK had zero bids for wind-parks, and immediately the discussion was "new subsidy models". Intermittent renewables in Germany currently get €20 billion in direct subsidies, never mind the advantage of having feed-in priority and being able to burden other producers with cost of intermittency.

> The Blackout in Spain had nothing to do with renewables

That's also not true. There was a trigger (in PV production) that led to a substation having problems. But that was just the trigger, not the cause. Grids have to be able to deal with faults like that from time to time. The grid in Spain wasn't, because there were too many intermittent renewables in the grid, and too few rotating masses that stabilize the grid.

> Grid scale batteries solve this problem.

Are these grid scale batteries sufficient to power an entire industrialized nation for a week or more in the room with us now? How much are they?