1) Come on, you can build windmill farms and solar farms in stages and start getting generation far faster than the time to get a nuke plant up. They can be easily upgraded/replaced without worrying about nuclear fuel. Nuclear reactors are 8-10 year projects with no payoff until the switch is turned, until the holy grail of the cheap shipping container sized reactor is realized. A windmill farm can start with one or two windmills and grow from there.
2) Lazards has specific categories for unsubsidized and subsidized, and NO WAY subsidies are responsible for nuclear being SIX TIMES more expensive. The nuclear industry shouldn't complain about subsidies, it's the only way they stay relevant. And the subsidies that really matter are the subsidies for fossil fuels.
"One or two windmills" aren't going to replace an 8 GW nuclear power plant, and by the time you could "grow from there" you'd have had enough time to build a nuclear plant. Which, you know, still works even when the wind isn't blowing.
Are you familiar with the expression "hope is not a plan"?
What the person was referring to is the fact that you will have an incremental increase in production with wind. With nuclear you will have to wait until the reactor is done.
Looking at my country there will most certainly be no nuclear reactors in place before 2035, whereas there is almost 70TWh/yr of sea based wind power waiting for permission to start building (expected to be operational in 5 years), and another 300TWh/yr on track to submit proposals for consideration.
It is hard to feel positive about nuclear power when everybody talks a lot, but nothing seems to happen. SMRs are mentioned everywhere but the economics make them seem like a crazy bet currently.
The fact that it takes 10 years is the thing we need to address.
For example, one of the problems has been that the government will change the construction requirements during construction. If the reactor was completed it would be allowed to continue using what it was licensed to use initially, but if it's half completed they will change the requirements and require them to start over. This could be solved by using the requirements in place on the day construction begins rather than the day construction ends, which is what would have been permitted if construction had taken less time, which in turn allows construction to take less time.
You might also consider the nature of an issue to determine whether it should prevent the plant from being commissioned. If two pipes are too close together and it would cause the material to fatigue in 15 years instead of the expected 30, this is a problem that needs to be fixed, but it is one that could reasonably be fixed two years after operations begin instead of holding up the start of operations for two years.
2) Lazards has specific categories for unsubsidized and subsidized, and NO WAY subsidies are responsible for nuclear being SIX TIMES more expensive. The nuclear industry shouldn't complain about subsidies, it's the only way they stay relevant. And the subsidies that really matter are the subsidies for fossil fuels.