Did I read the costs (levelized cost of energy (operating)) $/MWhour incorrectly?
I took a low-high range of $24-$33/MWh for nuclear to be less than $37-$47 (coal) and competitive with $19-$29 (gas combined cycle).
Including capital costs, the nuclear cost is much higher which is why technologies are being developed to reduce the initial costs (hence the reference to Thorcon). I am not sure how fast renewables + storage will become viable for baseload, compared to alternative nuclear technologies, so I can make no comment on that.
Looking at the levelized cost of energy Page 19 (which should give a reasonable apples to apples comparison), operating nuclear looks more competitive than coal, and even competitive with combined cycle, but with 0 CO2 emissions.
Two major issues with nuclear seem to be:
+ safety risk
+ capital cost & build process
There is an interesting book about how the perception of nuclear risk is not necessarily warranted by the actual risk - Atomic Obsession: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00F8CWE4U/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_... This is related to cost because the risk framework drives regulation and regulation drives capital/operating cost.
It seems there are efforts to solve the capital cost/build delay problem by designing new generating plants to be built in shipyards - https://thorconpower.com/production/
This is irritating. If you want to continue using Firefox, you may be able to remove this problem using the Adblocker Ultimate add-on. If you go to the GCP console, and then click on Adblocker, it will show amenu item "Block Element". If you can select the white patch, it will remove it, and keep it removed. It worked for me.