Scientists assessed the options for growing nuclear power. They are grim.

[jpak]

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/7/11/17555644/nuclear-power-energy-climate-decarbonization-renewables

Is nuclear power going to help the United States decarbonize its energy supply and fight climate change?

Probably not.

That is the conclusion of a remarkable new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in early July — remarkable because it is not written by opponents of nuclear power, as one might expect given the conclusion. The authors are in fact extremely supportive of nuclear and view its loss as a matter of “profound concern”:

Achieving deep decarbonization of the energy system will require a portfolio of every available technology and strategy we can muster. It should be a source of profound concern for all who care about climate change that, for entirely predictable and resolvable reasons, the United States appears set to virtually lose nuclear power, and thus a wedge of reliable and low-carbon energy, over the next few decades.

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YES!

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Subtitle of the article: "That's profoundly concerning for climate change."

Don't think I'd be dancing over that.

It's clear from the article that the failure lies partly in lack of planning, and largely in the failure of the Invisible Bloody Hand of the Free Market to include socialized costs in any pricing scheme. The single most successful competitor in the energy markets is natural gas -- because dumping all those gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere has a market cost of exactly nothing. No new nukes will most likely mean lots more natural gas being burned long before it means any comparable amount of renewable energy.