Why do you think the fossil fuel industry wants nuclear power? How do they benefit? They appear to have gained immensely from the halt of nuclear power deployment in the west.
E.g. France famously decarbonised it's electric grid in a couple of decades after 1970s due to the energy crisis using nuclear power. How did this help fossil fuel companies? On the other hand, Germany has continued to be more reliant on coal and natural gas for electricity generation after deciding to abandon nuclear power post-Fukushima and pursue energiewende. Or remember BP, an oil and gas company, and it's whole Beyond Petroleum thing trying to make people believe it was into renewables?
If we are going to hypothesize conspiracies, then just looking purely at outcomes over recent decades, it would make more sense that the fossil fuel industry supports RE and RE targets, rather than CO2 targets or nuclear power, because the former works out far more favorably than the latter for their industry.
If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.
Nuclear energy now provides about 10% of the world’s electricity from about 445 power reactors.
Then how do you intend to decarbonize other energy uses without electricity? Want to replace gas furnaces with heat pumps? electricity. Produce hydrogen for shipping or CO2 free steel? Electricity. Charge everyones car battery? Electricity. So on, right?
The carbon industry wants delay on decarbonisation. New nuclear projects are poster children for delay, because the industry has been mostly incompetent at shipping and lacks urgency.
E.g. France famously decarbonised it's electric grid in a couple of decades after 1970s due to the energy crisis using nuclear power. How did this help fossil fuel companies? On the other hand, Germany has continued to be more reliant on coal and natural gas for electricity generation after deciding to abandon nuclear power post-Fukushima and pursue energiewende. Or remember BP, an oil and gas company, and it's whole Beyond Petroleum thing trying to make people believe it was into renewables?
If we are going to hypothesize conspiracies, then just looking purely at outcomes over recent decades, it would make more sense that the fossil fuel industry supports RE and RE targets, rather than CO2 targets or nuclear power, because the former works out far more favorably than the latter for their industry.