Arcturus

That’s actually shrinking now, it used to be a larger share a decade, two decades ago. Being replaced by renewables.

The point of making a profit, is so that you can re-invest and allow private industries into the market.

If I made you a loaf of bread, which took 15 mins, and you could sell it for $2 profit. You would be able to sell more pieces of bread correct?

If another person made you a loaf of bread, which took three days to complete, and you make a loss of $10 with each one sold, how many more pieces of bread are you willing to sell?

One feeds your population, the other has to be bailed out by the government, and everyone loses money and investment and time.

This is why China prioritises renewables, renewables are considered superior to nuclear when decarbonising the grid, and the best case scenario for nuclear, according to scientists in academia (as opposed to pro-nuke Youtube videos), requires nuclear to be a minor player in a majority renewables grid (and also be 25% cheaper). Unfortunately making nuclear cheaper, is not ideal.

The pro-nuke argument is literally funded by the mining lobby and the fossil fuels industry. Which is why most of their resources are from lobby groups, YouTube videos, public books, and TED talks… Because they know it’s going to be ineffective, and they only need to convince the public. Much like how the whole hydrogen-powered cars narrative is going, or environmentally friendly fuels. It’s an expensive distraction.

See the RAB that the UK has for the HPC nuke plant build. Companies are allowed to make a profit even before the powerplant is completed. The government will handle insurance, and decommissioning. Which, happens over a century, at taxpayers expense, and it produces no energy. There’s also the storage of radioactive material. All of this, uses money and resources that could otherwise be used for constructing renewables (and the fossil fuels industry loves this plan, because every moneypit nuke plant that is constructed, less renewables are built, and fossils gets to remain in the game because they then become only just one of the underperformers, rather than all), decarbonising the grid (faster, see study), and on top of that, everybody makes money.

But don’t worry, renewables are also cheaper and more profitable than fossils in most applications as well, so they’ll lose out on future energy projects, besides, like in Germany’s case, being used as a backup.

If you’re constantly pouring money into a loss-making industry, it means you’re not efficiently managing your resources to build more projects. Profits from renewables can be reinvested before a single plant can’t be constructed. And that nuclear plant, will never make enough profit to build another.

So, you’re going to spend, billions, to build a nuclear powerplant, that will decarbonise at a slower rate, never turn a profit, be an economic sinkhole megaproject, or, you could just build a solar panel or wind turbine in like, a year, where it’ll be functional and working. Profits allow you to reinvest into more projects. Losses, mean you’re putting endless amounts of money into less.

Poor track record with safety (not talking about the big issues such as meltdowns, but smaller issues such as minor leaks, and workplace incidents). Nobody’s interested in building them unless they’ve got profit guarantees and subsidies from the government. Nobody’s interested in insuring them in full (unless it’s the government). Nobody’s interested in the eventual decommissioning process, which can take a century, and again, still costs. Renewables will be up and running, and profitable, long before nuclear is constructed.