To be fair natural gas is only cheap because the cost to the environment isn't factored in. The cost of nuclear power is pennies when compared to the decimation global warming will bring to the human race.
Even so, natural gas in the US is so cheap that the CO2 charge that would be needed for new nuclear to compete would be very high, so high that very large CO2 emission reduction would occur elsewhere first.
“The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.
