Because renewables are regional. They make exceedingly good sense in places like the US midwest or most of Europe where you can build solar / wind and have substantial availability. Solar, by contrast, is much less performant if you live somewhere with less sunlight due to any number of reasons - weather, smog, latitude, etc. Same with wind - it only makes sense to build wind where you get the most wind.
And the trick with those is that its not a zero sum. Even if solar would be viable somewhere less optimal panels are still going to go where solar is cheapest first. And then you are looking at the costs of transporting that power gradually towards areas of reduced renewables efficiency and/or storing it.
To put it even more generally, if the state of Maine were willing to build a fission plant but not buy solar, wind, hydro, etc LET THEM BUILD IT. You can manufacture all the solar panels and windmills you can while also building nuclear plants. The priority has to be shutting down all oil and gas plants as soon as possible by any means available.
No one is stopping anyone from building modern nuclear reactors except debt markets and utilities. The problem is that no one wants them (compared to other generation technologies).
That’s wrong. Debt markets are reflecting the risks of the plants being stopped by orgs like the NRC, etc. The debt markets don’t favor it precisely because so many different parties can block new builds.
I disagree with your assertion. It's simply time value of money. As an investor, you don't want to wait decades for a higher risk low return that may never materialize, or the bond defaults entirely because your nuclear plant is shuttered for safety or political reasons. Could government insure the bond? Yes! But then they're subsidizing nuclear when that money could go into renewables and storage.
And the trick with those is that its not a zero sum. Even if solar would be viable somewhere less optimal panels are still going to go where solar is cheapest first. And then you are looking at the costs of transporting that power gradually towards areas of reduced renewables efficiency and/or storing it.
To put it even more generally, if the state of Maine were willing to build a fission plant but not buy solar, wind, hydro, etc LET THEM BUILD IT. You can manufacture all the solar panels and windmills you can while also building nuclear plants. The priority has to be shutting down all oil and gas plants as soon as possible by any means available.