France actually also has had cost overuns and projects extended as well. The biggest problem hurting nuclear is we do each project as a one off design which increases the cost and time immensely. Solar had gotten much cheaper and able to be installed quickly largely because of manufacturing standards and continued development which encourages companies to develop specialized equipment, construction teams to be familiar with standards, and costs to be lowered due to mass production.

That’s why I mentioned the NOAK study on nuclear power which shows a lifecycle cost of 66/MWh compared to solar plus storage which even with only 17 hours of storage is sitting at $104/MWh then if you factor in the additional losses from transmission, cost of installing UHV transmission lines, and trying to use solar to power places that end up with high energy costs for heating at night and 24hr manufacturing, solar doesn’t make as much sense.

Vogtle is everyone’s example of why nuclear power is bad in the U.S. but it was also the exact lesson on why nuclear power can work as the cost overruns had to do with their original contractor filing for bankruptcy, having to return 3 core baskets because they didn’t have a reliable manufacturer, and the fact that they had to come up with the R&D cost for 2 nuclear reactor designs. Now that the project is complete though the AP1000 is approved to be built so designs costs will be a fraction, numerous designs are being built around the world so manufacturers should be able to handle the project parts, and we have construction crews who have built the exact reactor before

As I said before solar and wind should defenitely be considered before nuclear but nuclear can still be a viable option