Sunny's right.
I inherited a nuclear corp. when I started playing. It's now a fully upgraded state corp operating at 121% production and producing @250 quality. Even then, it only generated $70M in profits last month.
Although, by converting the power to regular electricity and selling it, I could generate $1.14B in profits.
A young nuclear power company is going to be a loss leader - and its low quality is not going to be worth much even after converting it to electricity. Whatever money you make in the conversion is going to be lost (and then some) in the company's dismal performance.
Part of the problem is that countries only have one 'pool' from which to sell and to consume. As soon as your country buys your nuclear power, it mixes with your country's electric 'pool' and the quality averages out. This is the same 'pool' that supplies your country's energy needs. It makes great sense to consume low Q electricity and sell high Q electricity. But you only have one pool. It all gets mixed together. So, your state ends up consuming electricity at a wastefully high Q, and/or selling it at a lower Q; both being wasteful.
You can contract low Q nuke power to your companies directly. But that's just a complex way of subsidizing your companies. Your govt. will have to keep the nuke power company on life support while it makes your companies more profitable. Worse, it's keeping all those worker busy producing a loss when they could be busy generating a profit. Even worse, if you upgrade your nuclear pwr. company, the higher Q will cut your nuclear power's losses, at the expense of your other company's profits (they have to pay for the higher Q electricity)
This would only make sense if you're already a rich country trying to make a few of your companies more profitable - by not allowing your nuke pwr co. to upgrade product quality. Used this way, nuclear power companies are like the proverbial white elephant.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Sunny, but can an enterprise keep an electricity 'pool' separate from any country? So if a premium player had both a country and an enterprise, he could maintain two pools - one for national consumption and one for sale? If I'm right, then maximizing profits from owning nuclear power company is something only a premium player could pull off.