We cite costs in money because it’s useful. But you can’t eat money and you can’t build from it. You need actual stuff and land to do so. That is limited in a way that the money supply isn’t.
Case in point, the currently ongoing global supply shortage.
I would think the point is that if nuclear costs more money, it's suggestive that it doesn't really use less resources than other options that cost less.
Of course, that's not entirely true, as some of the costs for nuclear are insurance, which isn't priced particularly rationally, and of course, for human expertise, but that's arguably a far more scarce resource as are land and raw building materials - i.e. if you're using highly-skilled human brain power to design/build/run nuclear power plants, it prevents us from using that brain power to do other potentially more productive things (which might include coming up with better solutions for our environmental challenges).
To be clear - I'm quite supportive of more nuclear power, but certainly not because it uses less land or resources.
I realise that, but this argument is based on the assumption that things in the world are rationally priced.
When an NFT sells for more than a small power plant and a celebrity dog walker can be paid more than a nuclear engineer I don’t have a lot of faith in that premise.
Fair call. But while obviously imperfect, cost in $ is about the best estimate we have of the underlying value of all resources involved for a given economic output. Unfortunately it typically doesn't include externalities - if it had done so historically nuclear might already be cheaper now than fossil fuels.
Case in point, the currently ongoing global supply shortage.