note: currently the electricity price in the UK has risen massively, which makes this project a little less absurd in cost, but I guess the high prices should be somewhat temporary, until the gas situation is figured out.
Still, renewables are still built at half this strike price.
As with all high technology, if you stop practicing it for 20 years, people who would know how to build things retire, supply chains disappear and technology gap widens. The key is to keep building this things to keep supply chains and expertise going and to exploit the economy of scale. So hardly surprising this will cost so much. Also note that the article is from 2017.
Through the media and advertising campaigns, key messages were hammered home. Renewables were intermittent and unreliable. Overseas gas imports were politically vulnerable. “Green” nuclear was the only plausible way to hit carbon dioxide reduction targets.
Also according to EU research and many other source nuclear is actually “Green”, not to mention that renewables are intermittent by nature and energy storage research that goes for decades got as nothing practical so far.
Also The Guardian is obviously biased on anti-nuclear side; just read this article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/23/nuclear-energy-push-is-not-powered-by-sense
