It's not the magnitude of demand that affects price - it's the price elasticity - the demand and supply curves matter. Demand for petroleum (e.g. gas, etc.) is very stiff - so small changes in supply can have large impacts on price.
While I'm sure some of that does occur some places in the region, my experience in the Utah/Idaho region is very much the opposite. Friendly and very merit oriented work environments.
Depending on who you talk to and your definitions, nuclear is generally considered dispatchable. The only definitively non-dispatchable sources are e.g. wind and solar where they cannot guarantee power levels and availability during the dispatching window. It is a bit of a spectrum - some sources (i.e. nat gas plants) are considered highly dispatchable because they can be spun up and down and adjust power levels very quickly (i.e. load following).
Global supply chain problems. Inflation problems. China still doing rolling lockdowns. Geopolitical conflicts. Ukraine. China-Taiwan. Off the heels of a not unlikely a lab evolved virus pandemic. Extreme political polarization in the U.S. Increasing anxiety and other mental health problems in youth. I'm going to go with very worried. But maybe I'm just becoming an old cynical curmudgeon.
No they are technically correct. In the reactor world "shut down" explicitly and specifically refers to chain-reaction-running mode. The reactors do still require active cooling for several days+ to avoid plant damage scenarios. Several comments on this page seem to not have a clear understanding of this difference.
Once the chain reaction is shut down - there is basically no way for the reactor to come alive (chain-reaction-wise) again on its own - not even if it's being bombed, shelled, etc. And run-away super(prompt)critical reactions are not even possible with this reactor design. These reactors are water-moderated - which means that water is used to slow down neutrons to increase their reaction probability. As the reactor heats up, the water gets less dense (even if it is still a liquid) making it a less effective moderator - this density decrease is enough to passively/automatically keep the reactor in a shut-down state. Residual decay heat from radioactivity of the fission byproducts post-shutdown is enough to damage the reactor internals for several days - hence the need for active cooling post-shutdown.
I've seen lots of crazy-exaggerated news reporting on how "bad" or "dangerous" this entire situation could be. It's not good, but neither is the war in Ukraine. It's not even remotely possible for this to be anything like Chernobyl, and I think unlikely to be nearly as bad as Fukushima (which in the grand scheme of the Tsunami - wasn't really that bad). In the war context, I don't think this nuclear plant situation is particularly notable beyond it providing a large fraction of Ukraine's power.