Renewables haven't scaled yet, even if they are making progress.

Nuclear is interesting in that we have around 70-90 thousands years of fuel for the plants, which can only get cheaper/safer over time as the technology gets better. Currently, their capital requirements (they are expensive to build even if they are cheap to fuel) and waste problems make them fairly unviable. Couple that with being even less on demand than coal...

Nuclear generates a lot more kilowatt-hours per square-foot than renewables, especially in places that aren't very sunny or windy. I am not advocating for a 100% nuclear grid, but I don't see how we can get rid of coal without a decent number of nuclear plants.

> pretty much every major builder of nuclear plants outside of China are in trouble and/or downsizing/restructuring in big ways.

The proximate cause AFAIK is lack of demand, which depends on politics, which depends on public perception of its danger. It doesn't depend on economics, or at least that's not the immediate problem.