> The construction costs are high predominantly as a result of inefficient (or in this case purposely obstructive) legal requirements.
This seems unlikely given a) several western governments are dead keen on nuclear renaissance, b) the high construction costs are historically, and in recent times, seen in each country dabbling with new nuclear fission plants, and c) the absence of claims from construction companies and investors in new nuclear fission plants about this alleged obstacle.
(Aside - Jeremy Legget's site has some great resources for cost and scheduling blowouts. He's partisan, but I've found no reason to doubt his sources or conclusions.)
> The energy produced through fission from one pound of uranium is the same as from burning 2.7 million pounds of coal.
I wasn't suggesting a disparity in source fuel volumes - I'm aware of how both burning stuff and fission works.
My point was that obtaining clean high quality fissionable material is non-trivial (if it weren't the case we'd probably all be dead).
I'm unconvinced that existing fuel rods can be used to power newer model fission reactors -- unless you're talking about MSR's, which I thought went out of favour last century, and we don't really have any 'modern' plants built (yet). Again, I refer to some of Leggett's work analysing some of the new UK plant constructions - way over cost and time expectations, and likely about to be abandoned by investors.
> Decommissioning costs are a thing invented to make nuclear seem more expensive by counting it in one place but not the other.
I don't understand. Are you suggesting it shouldn't be counted, or the comparison costs to renewables is being misstated?
Comparing it to coal mines is disingenuous, unless you think I'm pushing coal (I am not).
Comparing it to mines for 'raw material that go into solar panels' is more interesting, but I highly factoring that in would shift the balance sheet in favour of fission.
> And long-term waste management is only a thing for legacy reactors. The newer reactors use their "waste" as fuel, solving both problems.
If you're talking thorium and MSR's here, it's not strictly true, is it? Apart from the absence of any existing viable reactors, thorium reactors need, and produce, rare isotopes of uranium, with longer half lifes than say 235 or 238.
I'm at the edge of my knowledge here, to be sure, but ultimately the ramp-up times to build MSR's, the sheer volume required to replace the existing fission reactors, the experiences around the world of cost / schedule blow-outs, the trend for wind, solar thermal, storage, and and even solar PVC -- all seem to indicate fission isn't really a sensible option now.