Lovering: Lack of demand-pull policy drove high US nuclear costs
Jessica Lovering · The cost of nuclear · Nov 16, 2023 · at 33:08
Jessica Lovering contrasts the historical cost curves of nuclear power and renewable energy with Shayle Kann on Catalyst.
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“What's really been missing with nuclear in terms of policy to help bring down the cost is that demand pull policy. And so this is why you see that nuclear is cheaper and gets cheaper over time in places that have a lot of growth in demand for electricity because the plants are really needed. So there's demand for them. And that was true in the U.S. As well. That's when we built a lot of the nuclear, but cost didn't come down for a lot of reasons, but the U.S. Hasn't ever really had policies to create or incentivize demand for nuclear, or even for low carbon energy until quite recently with the IRA.”
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