Well, you can potentially design them in a way, that you can control the energy output more easily. However, then they will be even less economical than they are now. If you run at lower output, you waste more fuel.
Free and cheap?!?
You are one deluded individual. Go do your research. Also, nuclear never had subsidies, only wind/solar did.
@MattMastodon @Sodis Only about 40% of demand can be directly met from volatiles (wind and solar), i. e. no intermediate storage. The rest has to come from »backup« or »storage« or however you call it.
Current storage tech is still almost 100% pumped hydro. Batteries have not made a real dent there yet. But pumped hydro is not enough by far, even potentially, and batteries have a long way to go to be even as scalable as pumped hydro.
So, backup. The only clean, scalable backup is nuclear.
@Sodis @MattMastodon Nuclear power plants can quite easily do load following. It happens regularly e. g. in France. However, since it has the lowest running costs, other sources are usually cut first as far as possible.
