It's exactly a problem with Nuclear, because it thrives only in centralized, monopolistic, authoritarian, non-market situations and actually supports those structures.
It's such in many countries. That's why Nuclear is on the way out in the West. The struggle will be to build new ones and even keep the current level. The French EPR is way over budget&time in France and Finland.
Basically Nuclear is also not insurable. That's why all risks are state owned. Building them is only possible with large amount of state money and protected markets (see the new EPR for the UK).
> In “Der Atomstaat” (“The Nuclear State”) Jungk quotes the Austrian scientist Helga Novotny, who back in the day worked at the IIASA (International Institute für Applied Systems Analysis) in Vienna/Laxenburg. She said that “the opposition against nuclear energy roots in the resistance against those who profit from the increasing economical and scientific focus. The opposition is directed against large-scale industry that makes common cause with big states and big science. It is the resistance of those who feel powerless and small in the face of the developments” (Der Atomstaat, 1977, zit. n. Ausgabe 1979 p. 77ff). This finding is still relevant today and still undermines democracy.
Democracy works great when people know what they're talking about. But sometimes they're "educated" by mass media and "scarecrows". They bring arguments like "we shouldn't even try, it definitely can't work" (without real knowledge and proof) or "we can't invest in this because we already invest in that" (as if investments in parallel research is unheard of). It's when you get to see the downsides of democracy and it's how democratic systems elect populist leaders not because they are better.
In the mean time (tens of) billions of Euros are spent on projects where some still have no end in sight (Stuttgart 21; Berlin Brandenburg Airport; Elbphilarmonie) but that's an easier sell because they look fancy.
Nuclear research of any kind has a massive stigma associated to the label. Since most people's "education" related to nuclear power is "Chernobyl and Fukushima" politicians will become populists and won't risk their cozy seat. If all your education about flying machines was "Hindenburg" you'd walk.
> Democracy works great when people know what they're talking about.
Energy policy has been widely discussed in Germany for three decades. There was even a party founded which had this as one of their main political topics. That party has been relatively stable and has been in the federal government for a few years.
> Stuttgart 21; Berlin Brandenburg Airport; Elbphilarmonie ... that's an easier sell because they look fancy
None of these decisions were particular popular.
> Nuclear research of any kind has a massive stigma associated to the label
Rightly so. But worse is nuclear deployment in the form of large scale nuclear power plants in densely populated countries.
The battle for finding cancer cures had so many dead ends but it's the worthiness of the cause that keeps you going. The promise of single power plants able to produce an almost endless supply of cheap, clean(ish?) energy still tickles the imagination more than vast swaths of land covered by PV panels or wind turbines.
> Nuclear is simply not cost effective in a democratic society.
Democracy is about picking your aim, not making the target more cost effective. And the more complex the topic, the less qualified regular people are at even guessing if something is cost effective or not. Also absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we failed to make the tech cost effective until now doesn't mean it cannot be and never will be.
You suggest anything that we've failed at for a few decades (even if some attempts are half-hearted) should just be halted because that's proof it cannot be done. Some of our greatest achievements came from people who wouldn't give up. Some are yet to come. Or we can just stop it all because democracy and cost effectiveness.
This is exactly why the move away from nuclear is politically motivated. Not because it's a foregone conclusion that it cannot be solved but rather because a politician will find it easier to convince "the democracy" that spending tens of billions on a stealth democracy dispatcher is more cost effective than spending the same on trying to improve nuclear to the point of eliminating the key downsides.
You haven't addressed the core of my comment that we usually don't stop just because we failed a few times. Are you arguing we should stop all research that hasn't produced results after a certain time or budget? The argumentation you're basing your opinion on is circular: we couldn't do it > so we shouldn't do it > so we couldn't do it. It also relies on the assumption that investing in nuclear research prevents us from investing in solar and wind power, which it shouldn't. There's no reason to stop research into better alternatives just because we have something that "works".
> It's already happening. In scale.
Again, you are evading the fact that (the as of yet unfulfilled promise of) better nuclear power would actually deliver more than that. In the mean time our energy needs are increasing faster than the efficiency of PV cells and generators is. There's nothing wrong with researching even better alternatives.
Just over a decade ago so many were insisting EVs were dead in the water. We had tried and failed and ICE tech was delivering and constantly improving. You're not arguing that nuclear is bad, you're arguing that we should not even attempt to make it better or good. Why build cars when we can already do it with horses and horses scale...
You could be correct but not based on the arguments you brought so far.
I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse by avoiding all direct answers and just replying with platitudes. Some of them plain wrong since the "horse" argument was based on a well known quote by Henry Ford [0] also implying that just because you have a working solution doesn't mean you have to stop searching for a better one, and that "the market" is not an oracle.
The market was wrong so many times that using it as a source of ultimate truth sounds like a last ditch argument. The same market that still goes for oil and coal and would have barely touched EVs or clean energy if it wasn't for subsidies.
You either didn't understand the problem or are just like anyone who ever said "why invest in clean energy when we have perfectly good coal and oil today, and it scales". We did and now we reap the benefits of clean energy. There is no reason to not invest in getting even better, even if this requires research. But I think you just see the label "nuclear" and any reasonable argument based discussion flies out the window.
In the mean time Germany is closing nuclear plants to burn coal. Lungs rejoice.
Failed costly experiments. Nuclear is simply not cost effective in a democratic society.