They do not pay for themselves ever if you include all the externalities which currently are conveniently paid for by society. Nuclear power is a taxpayer scam where profits are privatized and costs are socialized.

>You need to generate four times as much energy if you are going to store it

Renewables are much cheaper power generators. Nuclear power costs about 5 times more than onshore wind power per kWh. Nuclear takes 5 to 17 years longer between planning and operation and produces on average 23 times the emissions per unit electricity generated.

So if you want to generate lots of energy for storage, you would be a fool to go for nuclear rather than renewables, even from a purely economical perspective.

And I rather have no electricity at all than nuclear power.