Apologies but I am not going through 71 pages of comments before adding my own; there may be points already made. Note also that I am not from USA and may well be missing US specific knowledge, but the essential problems are shared widely around the world.
I have some serious concerns about nuclear but I don't have ideological objections, yet I think it's not going to help us much so long as the mire of conflicted climate and energy politics continues; without deep, enduring commitment to the fundamental goal of transition to low emissions it will lack the deep, committed support of a large part of mainstream politics. Politics and economics will constrain nuclear rather than enable it because, ironically much of the support for nuclear is within the part of the political spectrum with a currently higher priority of opposing strong climate action and protecting the long term economic viability of fossil fuels; under such circumstances the influence of opponents of nuclear will appear much larger and overwhelming than otherwise. In addition the political expedient used by opponents of climate responsibility to frame the climate and energy problem as fringe and green - in order to taint real scientific advice in the public mind with associations with radical and irrational political nuttery has tended to deal the Conservative aligned nuclear-for-climate advocates out of the policy development game. Early renewables programs were almost certainly done as appeasement of the growning "green" community concern, probably with a cynical expectation they would fail so thoroughly that solar and wind - favoured by those most vocal in pushing the climate issue (because so many others were being silent) - would be discredited.
As long as the Republican party in the US (or Liberal National Party in Australia ) engage in Doubt, Deny, Delay politics on climate much of the political support for nuclear will not be able to be put to use effectively and nuclear's potential will remain on hold. More than any other option nuclear requires long term, enduring political commitment to The Transition, as the initial investments are too large for any incremental growth path.
Meanwhile renewable energy, whilst greatly impacted in both directions by government policy, is becoming economically viable in it's own right and can get enough support, despite the obstructionist politicking, to continue to be used in ever greater amounts. Past costs and rates of use are poor guides to future uptake; crucial price thresholds for energy production have been and are being passed and dealing with intermittency rather than production itself has become the issue of most significance. That will create it's own market impacts, such as abundant daytime solar energy forcing fixed plant - hydro, coal, gas, nuclear - into intermittency in response. (Note that this could be very different in US to here in Australia where there is a wholesale National Energy Market, with producers bidding to provide suppy in 30 minute blocks/soon to be 5 minute blocks, according to demand). When renewables are abundant wholesale prices go low and the daytime peak demand in sunny Australia, that previously forced prices high, has seen the most profitable period shaved from the FF business model.
Even a relatively small amount of storage can shave the prices off the evening peak and during sunny weather will see backup plant that would come online each afternoon being left idle for days at a time. It can be seen as a damaging disruption to the energy network, with regulations put in place to ensure the economic viability of FF producers or it can be used intelligently as a de-facto carbon price to drive investment in solutions to intermittency; I would prefer to see the latter. It will be those inflated peak prices that storage will compete for, not any average daily price. Hydro is well placed in that circumstance, being able to preferentially service the high priced peaks - it doesn't even have to be pumped storage to function as backup to renewables. Nuclear would need market interventions that reward their low emissions or else they too will face being forced to sit idle or sell below cost (possibly anti-competitive and illegal) every sunny day and need to recoup costs outside that period or insulate their production from the free market. Which would take policy making with forethought and planning - something still lacking, at least around here.
There is some element of jumping blind in a full commitment to a transition to renewable energy - although that will be true of any course we take. We will be deploying ever greater amounts of solar and wind before the solutions to intermittency are in place and requirea some faith that solutions can be achieved along the way to fully commit to it. There is a lot of room for R&D to deliver significant results, with some significant goals worth chasing - including improved energy storage, better distribution, efficiencies and demand management. I'm not convinced we can delay the continuing deployment of RE with any expectation it would lead to deployment of nuclear; in the current political mire such delay will only benefit fossil fuels.
