I think this discussion already run its course, it's generating a lot of both bad behaviour and reports, so I'm locking it.

Well yeah, it's a service. Expecting profit from necessary services is stupid and counter-productive but it makes a few people rich so of course it happens then you get memes like this.

If you ever need firefighters make sure you ONLY go to a profitable firehouse, or you'll be a huge hypocrite. Either that or stupid.

Also make sure you ONLY drive on profitable roads, and ONLY use private delivery services. And ONLY during the day because of streetlights.

A public service should be a public service, not profitable from the basic level.

You’re in the comments trying to act like you’re more noble, but if your very first angle and the one you built your post on is about profitability then you’ve already lost. You made a strawman and are just mad that it was called out.

Yea, renewables would be better, for sure. Talk about that, then, if that’s what you really care about.

There has never been a reactor that produced more energy than it took to construct? You sure about that?

Otherwise this is a capitalism meme, not a science meme.

why is there such a negative sentiment towards nuclear power? was it all oil and gas propaganda? or is there some truth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

First of all. I'm against nuclear power plants.

But. This right here, is a weird argument against it. I would even say, its no argument against it at all. We should not produce anything with the focus to make a profit. We should produce to meet needs. I would say that for the entire industry.

And even if you're not for a democratic industry that is owned by the people, you should at least see that there are some services where it just makes even less sense to look for profit. For example energy production, healthcare, public transport or the food industry. These are all fundamental services that just need to work. They should never have to focus on generating a profit. Even many liberals have realised this.

Even if this were true, would that be important nowadays? If it can push out climate change and make it into a problem to solve later (in case of fission). Fusion would be great though

Neither are most roads, sewers or hospitals, we are talking basic infrastructure here, whether it is profitable seems to me to be completely irrelevant.

And again, not a huge fan of nuclear power plants, but this argument is not one I hold against them.

From Wikipedia

In 2019, the US EIA revised the levelized cost of electricity from new advanced nuclear power plants going online in 2023 to be $0.0775/kWh before government subsidies, using a regulated industry 4.3% cost of capital (WACC - pre-tax 6.6%) over a 30-year cost recovery period.[63] Financial firm Lazard also updated its levelized cost of electricity report costing new nuclear at between $0.118/kWh and $0.192/kWh using a commercial 7.7% cost of capital (WACC - pre-tax 12% cost for the higher-risk 40% equity finance and 8% cost for the 60% loan finance) over a 40-year lifetime.[64]

The article discusses why that number is probably flawed and relies on cherry picked data, but it seems somewhat close to profitability. Assuming theyre above with a cost of electricity of ~$0.20/kWh (already cheaper than some of US) should be viable, yeah?