Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

I don't see the connection to wind generation, however. Did some Iowa landowner finance a wind farm with a DAPL eminent-domain payment? That seems tenuous.

According to "The Shift Project" [0], we added over 1700 GW of fossil fuel generation between 1994 and 2014. Since less than 900 GW was added between 1980 and 2000, that was also "unprecedented", if we're using this weak definition of that word. We can expect any twenty-year period for any generation mode other than maybe dried-dung burning to be unprecedented in that sense. 1700 is still in the same ballpark for a smaller population with less economic development than we can expect twenty years from now.

It's also a question of demand.

OK, sure, maybe we won't need that much power. Maybe we'll need more. Maybe we'll need it earlier or later. Let's try to remember the discussion we're having, though. TFA is crying about the fate of nuclear. One of their cries is that nuclear is the only generation mode that can control greenhouse gases. In order to ignore the elephants called "solar" and "wind", they have to pretend that the growth in those generation modes will soon slow down massively. You don't save that ridiculous pretense by wondering about demand. The demand level is part of the premise of their whole ridiculous argument. If demand ends up being less, then we won't need as much solar and wind power.

[0] https://www.tsp-data-portal.org/TOP-20-Capacity#tspQvChart

The industry was incredibly young and just starting. Nuclear was actually competing on the free market against coal. Many many more nuclear projects were planed, and nuclear had fastest transition from any energy form to another when it was cut off by regulatory change.

Claiming its early development was a failure is totally wrong.

> Nuclear power was NEVER going to be very cheap. Even in the 1950s, it was recognized that the cost of the common elements of coal and nuclear plants were going to restrict nuclear to being MAYBE 20% cheaper than coal, at best, and that only if everything broke the right way.

That's wrong even for PWR and nuclear was in its infancy still. We know that you can build nuclear reactors much smaller and better over time. PWR are 2% efficient and there is lots of room for improvement.

Yes but coal also has a fuel cost for operation that is much much higher then fuel cost for nuclear. A nuclear plant last longer, doesn't kill close to as many people and doesn't cause global warming. A coal plant would not even be allowed to operate if it was regulated like a nuclear plant, its ironically to radioactive.

> And now, nuclear has two feet in the tech grave. The tech base has decayed away, and continues to degrade. Hoped for cost reductions of Gen III/III+ reactors from experience would require impossible sustained subsidies. This is why hopes are being pinned on small Hail Mary Reactors. They're the only possibility of avoiding nuclear's extinction.

It was literally impossible in the US to license and type of new reactor. Its impossible to buy fuel for prototypes. The DoE requires huge financial and time commitment before they even look at your innovations.

In the 60s new reactor types and experiments were built many a year and now a slightly different fuel for a reactor takes 10 years to go threw regulation.

In 100 years people will look back at this time and laugh at us. The will live in a nuclear society, not in one based on solar, wind and battery power.

So the answer to your question is "because you are wrong".