This seems pretty naive to me. Big public works projects are big so they take a lot of time and money. Of course there's political overhead and graft, etc. However, I'd argue that doesn't really matter.
Let's say it costs $10 billion to build a nuclear plant producing ~2 GWatts (something about what has costed historically). This includes all the graft and corruption of which you speak.
We need around 500 of them (need ~1 TWatt) to replace all existing electric power generation for a total cost of $5 trillion. Financed over 15 years that's $50 billion a year (~8% increase in federal spending).
So really who cares if public works projects are inefficient? For a modest tax increase (or modest debt increase) we're done with primary energy-production related emissions.
Added benefit is we can almost certainly export our now resurgent and world-leading fission power plants around the world. This would (a) solve a big part of the climate change problem (b) make America look good, particularly if we provide fission technology at-cost (c) position us as a technology leader in the sustainable/renewable energy sector.
As a sidenote, it's also VERY likely that building 500 hopefully identical power plants would drive costs down significantly. Numbers given are worst-case.
I estimate 3/4 the cost of a nuke plant (when it gets finished at all) is graft. Besides the waste, it enriches crooks who go on to poison public decision making. That is how we got where we are now.
It costs more just to operate and maintain an existing nuke than to build out new solar. That is why they are being retired, and new projects are cancelled. Their power gets less competitive with every day that passes.
> That price is at least 5x solar+wind+storage.
Do you have a source? This seems.. unlikely to be true.
As for your point on graft, you seem to have a very black/white view of government. I find, in general, that black/white views are usually wrong quite often, since very few things are black/white. While I'm sure we can point to many examples of big public works projects that were debacles, certainly there are many examples which have turned out quite well. An immediate assumption that any large public works project will turn out badly is, I think, naive.
We have many decades of experience with, specifically, nukes. If any were not debacles, we would be hearing about them. (They have, though, enriched certain people.)
I do indeed have a black/white view on graft: I am against it. Your argument in its favor, and for nukes on the back of that, is not persuasive.
Let's say it costs $10 billion to build a nuclear plant producing ~2 GWatts (something about what has costed historically). This includes all the graft and corruption of which you speak.
We need around 500 of them (need ~1 TWatt) to replace all existing electric power generation for a total cost of $5 trillion. Financed over 15 years that's $50 billion a year (~8% increase in federal spending).
So really who cares if public works projects are inefficient? For a modest tax increase (or modest debt increase) we're done with primary energy-production related emissions.
Added benefit is we can almost certainly export our now resurgent and world-leading fission power plants around the world. This would (a) solve a big part of the climate change problem (b) make America look good, particularly if we provide fission technology at-cost (c) position us as a technology leader in the sustainable/renewable energy sector.
As a sidenote, it's also VERY likely that building 500 hopefully identical power plants would drive costs down significantly. Numbers given are worst-case.