I once asked a French libertarian (there actually is one) acquaintance of mine how France managed to build so much nuclear power capacity at the very time we in the United States gave up on it. His answer was as simple as it is accurate: “Ah, our Communists supported nuclear power whereas in your country, your Communists opposed it.” He certainly has Jane Fonda’s number right, and it is true that France’s Communist Party, which is well integrated in to the labor unions, saw nuclear power as a good source of union jobs.
My follow up question was how France was able to build so many reactors so quickly and apparently at a lower cost than we did. Once again, a simple and (mostly) accurate answer: “In France, we have 300 kinds of cheese but one nuclear reactor design; in America it is just the opposite—you have one kind of cheese, and 1oo custom nuclear reactor designs.”
In any case, here is what is possible when the government decides to support nuclear power rather than hobble it with over-regulation and spend money on intermittent wind and solar power instead:
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