Highest Level Takeaway:
1)There is a wide range of possible outcomes for nuclear from game changing cost declines to status quo.
2)Solar's trajectory is pretty clear, it's declining in costs (maybe not declining so much relative to what's possible for nuclear) and growing.
Keep scrolling for nuance...
2/Had we not over regulated nuclear it may have been the lowest cost source of electricity today.
BUT, that's not the world we live in. Nuclear costs skyrocketed while solar kept declining.
Now we are at an interesting point in time where regulation headwinds could become tailwinds.
3/If just comparing capital cost, even if nuclear costs had continued to fall in line with the trend in place before regulations derailed them in the 1970s, a quick glance would suggest that they still would not be as low today as solar on a cost-per-watt basis, but...
2/One instructive analogy could be a Hollywood Studio vs Amazon Prime.
Hollywood studio needs hits b/c that's its whole business. Looks at Amazon Prime spending as irrational on cost per viewership. But Prime is part of a suite of services.
3/If Prime video content attracts and retains marginal customers across its entire suite of services, which extend far beyond video streaming, then Amazon’s content spend—seemingly unprofitable from a Hollywood mogul’s perspective—is entirely rational.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey asks: Do you think the next 12 months or so will be a good time or a bad time to buy a new vehicle?
More people than ever said "Bad Time" going all the way back to 1961.
2/But automakers claim demand is strong and point to low inventory on dealer lots.
But is inventory on dealer lots? How much inventory is in people's driveways after buying a car to avoid public transport during COVID?
3/As semiconductors arrive, can selling a low number of cars quickly be linearly extrapolated to selling a high number of cars quickly?
There is also a shift in consumer preference towards electric vehicles. Will the incremental buyer want a gas-powered vehicle or an EV?