alt Hacker NewsNuclear power plants have a huge lead time and require government approval, something the Finnish government declined to approve (Fortum had requested to build a third reactor). Solar and wind are fine but they’re not usable as a replacement for nuclear without huge battery installations which make the cost worse than nuclear. Also large installations still take time - from regulatory approvals to actually building the thing to connecting it to the grid. To give you a sense of scale, of the 53GW of planned wind projects, only 0.9GW are under active construction.
Also, unlike solar and wind, nuclear is a very important anchor source to prevent fossil fuel use in the grid. Solar and wind only absorb growth but so far have never managed to actually compete on baseload power requirements.
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Note that when Fortum was declined it was because two others were given approval. Lack of new nuclear in Finland isn't because no permits, but because Olkiluoto 3 exposed the real costs so Olkiluoto 4 was cancelled. Russia was the partner in the other one so that went to hell with the attack to Ukraine.
Then why is California down to 25% fossil generation from 60% a few years ago? And still dropping fast as more and more batteries and renewables come on line. Tell me again how baseload generation is still a relevant concept