Comment by jmyeet

Oh it has tons of cons:

1. It's the most expensive form of electricity;

2. Even that cost is only obtained by accounting tricks, basically arguing the life of the plant is 60 years;

3. The true cost in the last 30 years just isn't known (eg Hinkley Point-C);

4. Processing of uranium ore into fuel creates is an unsolved problem when it comes to waste byproducts eg UF6;

5. Processing and storage of spent fuel is an unsolved problem. No, you can't just stick it in a cave. Most spent fuel requires active cooling for years, possibly decades;

6. Long term investment in maintenance is super-important and something that particularly private companies are incredibly bad at as evidence by the infrastructure management of every private utility in the US;

7. They take 15-25 years to build, typically, if you're anyone but China. Who know how cheap the alternatives will be by then? Look at solar's price collapse;

8. SMR does not work and will not work. It's a myth sold to government to siphon grants;

9. The cost of a catastrophe of a single plant is many orders of magnitude higher than any other power plants. Examples: Chernobyl, Fukushima. And yes I can already feel the hand-waving away of "outliers";

10. No nuclear power plant has ever been built without significant government subsidies; and

11. No nuclear power plant pays the true insurance cost. Those costs will ultimately fall onto the taxpayer who will typically enjoy none of the proits.