Cheap??? No nuclear plant anywhere in the world sells electricity at anywhere near its real cost of production. Here in the US, even after the huge federal expenditures to develop the basic technology (starting with the Manhattan Project) , even with their exemption from financing the huge storage and decommissioning costs now looming, every Nuclear plant would be shut down tomorrow if the Price-Anderson act (which frees them from having to insure against the expected damages from the next Chernobyl-type accident) were to be repealed. There can be no doubt whatever that electricity today would be much, much cheaper everywhere if the vast sums spent since 1942 on nuclear technology had instead been spent on developing wind, tidal, and solar (including space-based) power plants. And, by the way, the predominant costs of TGV rides are capital construction and direct labor. Even a doubling of the electricity cost would scarcely raise the ticket price enough to make the project uneconomic.
Shane Mage
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)