I'm not particularly interested in the opinions of people "investing" in solar energy or batteries, both of which have proved useless in addressing climate change.
It's unfortunate that this wasteful exercise in subsidizing solar and batteries continues since it's entirely counterproductive. The claim that we can recycle millions, even hundreds of millions of tons of electronic waste accumulated each year, and still can't recycle 80,000 tons of used nuclear fuel - which is far more valuable - accumulated over 70 years should be, in a rational world, too absurd to contenance.
We shall see what the economics of Vogtle will prove to be. It's making a big deal in the minds of people who seem not to believe that climate change is not "too expensive," but nuclear reactors built after deliberate destruction of nuclear manufacturing infrastructure by intellectual and moral vandals is too expensive.
Forty years from now, every solar cell on this planet will be electronic waste, and the leachates and side products of recycling batteries will be a well known environmental problem (if it in fact happens) and Vogtle will still be producing electricity. The generations benefitting from Vogtle will not give a rat's ass about what it cost.
This all said, I do believe there are economic and environmental advantages to building small modular reactors. For one thing, I am increasingly convinced they can be printed, and after being built in an assembly line fashion, transported by truck to facilities for flexible missions. It should in fact, reduce up front capital costs, but every capital cost spent on nuclear energy is actually an investment in humanity as opposed to an investment in wishful thinking and denial.
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