Not entirely a good faith argument given the Op's sentiment about the wasted past.
Or, let me rephrase, how much fossils have been burned to date because nuclear got basically snuffed? We can probably express an answer in Celsius.
… Anti-nuclear sentiment is directly downstream from organized campaigns by organizations like Greenpeace, yes, but also left-aligned political parties that, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, decided make killing nuclear their entire reason for existing.
Thanks for all the extra greenhouse gases, Greenpeace!
Nuclear "became expensive" because state subsidies declined, labor costs increased, and environmental regulations across all industries tightened.
Climate change? Pollution? Nah, who cares, efficiency!
"China aims to reach 110 gigawatts (GWe) of nuclear capacity by 2030."
"China installed over 430 GW of renewables in 2025"
In other words china installed last year alone 5x the energy capacity in solar and wind, what the are planning to have in 2030
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
On the other hand their nuclear share is declining. It peaked at 4.7% in 2021 and is today down to 4.3%. Entirely irrelevant.
For each plan they put out they lower their nuclear targets and push them further into the future.
Going from a French like buildout 10-15 years ago to having it as a token investment today.
A model that is not based on science, given we know that cells have repair mechanisms? Jesus, even bananas are somewhat radioactive, so why are they being sold if any radiation is bad?
Thankfully, it seems the winds are changing in the US, where LNT is being replaced by science based models by regulatory bodies. I hope the rest of the world swiftly follows. The amount of deaths and damage and suffering and money that could have been avoided is mind boggling. If I imagine an alternate history where starting 70 years ago (even just some of) the money invested on fossil fuels or used to subsidize them had been directed to nuclear, and what the state of science today could be, what the state of the air could be, the number of floods, tornadoes, lung cancers that could have been avoided, forced displacements that could have been avoided and subsequent depressions and suicides (see Fukushima), my blood boils. It truly is a mistake of disproportionate scale, and a matching shame.
