> The storage extra costs to get around the variability of wind and solar are substantial.

Yes, and we have to consider new ways to tackle this, for example as already stated V2G (using vehicles' batteries, powerwalls...), green hydrogen...

> you need to take into account the capacity factor - to pretend the intermittency of these power sources doesn't matter is silly.

Yes, let me repeat: I don't ignore it and wrote that it is "way less a criteria for production units not consuming any fuel (wind, solar...) (and doesn't produce) waste", nothing less or more.

>> As for land use the main renewable reserve in nearly all nations are offshore wind…

> Well there are dozens of landlocked countries, so I am not sure I would say 'nearly all'

7% of world's population https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/groups/Landlocked-...
Onshore wind/solar/hydro stay potentially pertinent, and nations enjoying nothing of all this are rare.

> You have mentioned several times how cheap renewable power has become. As your source shows, rooftop solar has not been, is not and likely will never be cheap.

This is true but, just as your argument about the LCOE not integrating all costs, don't neglect that a local (rooftop...) source alleviates all distribution costs and losses, and also consumer-dependency.

> big subsidy to wealthy consumers that is paid for by less wealthy consumers

This is a political problem.

> I see solar advocates continue to advocate for this wealth transfer

I, for one, am opposed to any subsidizing.

>> add new transmission lines or some hypothetical new grid storage

> that ignores the actual costs (and difficulties) of doing that

I showed that a dense grid is pursued whatever the type of source (nuclear also massively benefits from it), and this is true for many perspective (economical, supply guarantee, flexibility...). The era of loose and local grids is over since the 1970's.

> One study estimated that to support renewables, the US would have to double the number of power lines at a cost of around 700 billion

Let's approximate. Production costs / MWh (LCOE): renewables at $80 (this is wayyyy too high...), nuclear at $120 (wayyy too low) / MWh
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020

Let's neglect the trend (renewables getting cheaper, nuclear getting more expensive)
Yearly demand: 4000TWh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-demand?tab=ch...

(* 4000000000 (- 120 80)): 160 billions/year spared production-side thanks to renewables

(/ 700 160): the system will be paid for in 5 years

That's neglecting that renewable relieve us from bad surprises: major accident, uranium prices/availability, waste management, decommission overcosts/overdelays...

> being much more expensive than that since in places like CA

CA's grid is notoriously way under-connected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California#Electrici...

> climate change is causing dryer summers, which has lead to many more fires from power lines

This is true whatever the type of source (renewable, nuclear, oil...).

Climate change will also impact nuclear reactors installed near rivers (cool down).

> to move current power lines underground

And this is, indeed, a major way to bump costs up. However there is no other realistic way when the line has to cross a densely populated area.

Renewables only add quantitatively to the necessary grid. Qualitatively the very mesh (interconnections) are already considered as justified (economically sound) even with a 100% nuclear (at this stage completely impossible) option.

> getting agreement from all the stakeholders seems to sometimes be an issue

Yes! This is a major point. It also plays for production units: the NIMBY effect is quite stronger against nuclear and fossils than against renewable units.

>> Everyone making any power source will try to get as high as possible capacity factor.

>Absolutely, my thesis is not that such a strategy isn't always sound, it is that a low capacity/load factor isn't, by itself, a show-stopper.

I never said it was a 'show stopper'. I said it was a big deal and right now it is neither cheap or simple to work around.

>>> In the 100 years since pumped hydro was developed, we haven't really deployed much of any other kind of grid storage.

>> Because fossil fuels are so convenient for storage...

> A coal plant isn't cheap to build. A nuclear power plant isn't cheap to build

They are way cheaper, compact and they used to be less-NIMBY-inducing than double-lake hydro plants!
They were more flexible too, and stay way better at inter-seasonal storage.

> Building extra plants to cover for planned/unplanned maintenance, daily variations in demand, seasonal variations, etc. is very expensive and wouldn't have been done if anyone thought building grid storage was going to be cheap or simple.

Grid storage simply wasn't even an option before at best the 2000's
No 'green hydrogen' concept, batteries wayyy too expensive (see https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline ) and therefore rare, and consequently no V2G (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid )...

> coal/nuclear/hydro don't absolutely need grid storage. Solar and wind do, so even if the cost is high, it would need to be paid.

True, however a very large part of hydro potential is already built and ready to serve for quite a while.

> the intermittent nature of wind and solar
> what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. If you were forced to choose, would you prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?

Nuclear is, right now, not panning out. It produces around 2.2% of world's final energy consumed, with 450 active reactors. In order to nuclear to provide a mere 22% of the final energy needed now we have to build 4500 new reactors. The average new reactor type produces around 1.4 times more than the average existing one, therefore 3215 new reactors would be sufficient (neglecting the necessary replacement of existing old ones). Does it seems realistic to you? Did you check the overcosts and overdelays of reactors built since the 2000's? They are huge!

Uranium reserves at current conditions can provide for at best 200 years (more probably 130 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium ), therefore the conditions (price and emissions, as the raise as the ore grade lowers, see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332 ) may worsen. Who will take the risk and invest?

Even investing in order to build a few reactors is distracting huge money from more efficient tools (renewables). Worse: as fixed costs (mining uranium, designing reactors, safety agencies, waste management logistics...) are high and necessary for any amount of reactors. Paying all this for a few reactors leads to an even more expensive system, distracting even more resources from more efficient tools.

>> In which wonderland 'wanting to' is equivalent to 'being able to'?

> If we could build nuclear plants 50 years ago, we can build them now.

Since the 2000's, which nuclear reactor was built without being massively overbudget and overdelay, then now works flawlessly?

> France went from about 0% to >70% electrical power from nuclear energy in 15 years

I already answered.

This is not exactly comparable.

France faced a way smoother challenge the amount of electricity consumed was then a third of what it is now.

France built a nuclear fleet in 25 years (1974-1999) See
https://web.archive.org/web/20211225120958/https://upload.wi...

France was then equipped with heavy industry (it isn't anymore ), financially at ease (after the 30 Glorieuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses ) while it now deeply indebted, moreover there was no 'electrification' (replacing all fossil fuels uses by electricity) real plan) and pushed by a major strategic risk (Arabs/Israel - triggered risk of oil embargo) while climate wasn't really a thing for long (and facts show that it really isn't yet).

This nuclear fleet then produced up to 90% of their gridpower. Note: this electricity is 25% of the total amount of final energy consumed in France.

> France built the bulk of them (56 reactors) in about 15 years.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

This is false, it took 25 years
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_r%C3%A9acteurs_nucl%...

> The EPR is a next generation design that was supposed to be a French/German collaboration, but since Germany decided to phase out nuclear power, Siemens sold their shares

France mastered building reactors, and therefore can theoretically recover (Siemens bailed out in 2009).

> China has released its 14th Five-Year Plan covering the 2021-2025 period and announced its aim to increase its nuclear power capacity by 40%
from 50 GW in 2020 to 70 GW in 2025.

My answer stays: Compare with renewables: 790GW already running (26% of the gridpower), and 1200GW planned for 2030. In 2020 China added 71,6GW windturbine power.