Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC

So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.

Look, I love nuclear technology. But time has moved on. The costs to rebuild this industry is astronomical and means we lose out on key-future technology like batteries.

Edit: But then there are bombs. And especially French love their nukes due national security. This is the only reason to keep pushing for nuclear, since Russia, the US and China are not gonna change direction on this either. But the very least we could do is be honest about it.

Edit 2: Changed from "World has moved on" to "time has moved on", since evidently China has invested for a good 2 decades to build their own fully functional nuclear-industry. Proving my point that it takes dedicated investment, network effects and scale to rebuild this industry. After all, they too want to mass produce nukes.

> But the world has moved on.

China's got 27 reactors under construction right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

China has been scaling back and delaying their nuclear program in favor of renewables since Fukushima.

At saturation, given current nuclear build out based on actual construction starts and China’s grid size, China will end up with 2-3% nuclear power in the grid mix.

Enough to sustain a civilian industry to complement any military ambitions, but it does not move the needle.

In terms of electricity China is all in on renewables and storage with a backstop of locally sourced firming coal.