Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's dozens of times more expensive during that 2% because it has to recover 100% of its cost in 2% of the time then it does contribute quite a bit to the total cost of operating the grid, whereas nuclear only has to make up the difference in that time between the market price the rest of the time and its overall average cost. Storage also has the further disadvantage that you have to over-spec it. It has to be bu…
Simple cycle gas turbines are 20 times cheaper than nuclear power plants of equal power output. So, no, your argument doesn't hold up when the actual numbers are examined.
Meanwhile that kind of storage will have more difficulty finding investors, because if it turns out that some cheaper or better alternative comes along, an investment in nuclear might have to average generating power below levelized cost, but at least you recover most of the capital. Putting in $100 in capital only to have the net present value fall to $80 sucks, but not nearly as much as putting in $100 in capital for a complete write off because you were expecting to be selling to the grid 2% of the time when it turns out to be 0% between demand based pricing and better than expected competing storage technologies. Which means higher capital costs (meaning interest rates) that reduce relative competitiveness even further.