Literally the whole nuclear industry government, private and the public went pretty crazy after Three Mile Island and doubled down on those mistakes with Chernobyl. There was a massive bias against nuclear on pretty much every level. Fortunately this is now changing slowly (GAIN for example), at least in the government. Pretty much any not so well informed person is against nuclear, and most of them can not say why other then some wage Greenpeace slogan that is simply scientifically inaccurate.
Regulation is insanely high for lots of stuff that really is not safety critical. Citing for a nuclear project is insanely difficult. The regulated energy market (in the US) simply does not value long term 100 year assets in the way they are set up. Nuclear cites are discriminated against in terms of low carbon benefits and tax credits (Solar gets tax credit when dispatching negatively priced energy). Nuclear cites get routinely sued and the environmentalist know that every month of delay is costing them millions, because up front capital has massive interest. Innovation has come to a virtual stand still, regulation has made it essentially impossible to innovate in nuclear for anything but the most incremental changes. The government has utterly failed at coming up with anything regarding nuclear 'waste', and instead of using one of the many straight forward solution is is basically in political limbo while the nuclear plants still pay millions to the government every year.
If you even want the nuclear regulatory body to take a look at your new design, you have to pay them a lot of money. If you want them to actually regulate it, they will say 'Ok thanks, we get back to you in the next couple of years we don't know how long its gone take and remember that's gone cost you 100 million at least'.
The regulation have hard coded in them that a reactor needs to have certain features, like 'Must have system to cool steam'. Now great, what if my reactor isn't water cooled? Well, pay them a couple 100 million more and 10-20 years and they can probably work out what regulations they would apply to your design. People couldn't build the old designs cheaply and they couldn't design new ones without the government leading the way to a commercial system it was impossible.
Nuclear was on target of replacing fossil fuels in energy production and was growing exponentially and was on target to be the fastest energy transition in human history and then 1 single safety failure that killed nobody wiped out that whole tech tree (Yes that's overly dramatic).
So, I agree more safety regulations were needed, but instead the nuclear industry was basically killed, practically every outstanding project (and there were many) was cancelled and almost no nuclear plants have been built after that. The few that have been built are often close to existing once.
At the same time, coal plants that are MUCH, MUCH more radioactive are allowed to operate. In fact, a nuclear plant that was as radioactive as a coal plant would not be allowed to operate AT ALL.
Regulation is insanely high for lots of stuff that really is not safety critical. Citing for a nuclear project is insanely difficult. The regulated energy market (in the US) simply does not value long term 100 year assets in the way they are set up. Nuclear cites are discriminated against in terms of low carbon benefits and tax credits (Solar gets tax credit when dispatching negatively priced energy). Nuclear cites get routinely sued and the environmentalist know that every month of delay is costing them millions, because up front capital has massive interest. Innovation has come to a virtual stand still, regulation has made it essentially impossible to innovate in nuclear for anything but the most incremental changes. The government has utterly failed at coming up with anything regarding nuclear 'waste', and instead of using one of the many straight forward solution is is basically in political limbo while the nuclear plants still pay millions to the government every year.
If you even want the nuclear regulatory body to take a look at your new design, you have to pay them a lot of money. If you want them to actually regulate it, they will say 'Ok thanks, we get back to you in the next couple of years we don't know how long its gone take and remember that's gone cost you 100 million at least'.
The regulation have hard coded in them that a reactor needs to have certain features, like 'Must have system to cool steam'. Now great, what if my reactor isn't water cooled? Well, pay them a couple 100 million more and 10-20 years and they can probably work out what regulations they would apply to your design. People couldn't build the old designs cheaply and they couldn't design new ones without the government leading the way to a commercial system it was impossible.
Nuclear was on target of replacing fossil fuels in energy production and was growing exponentially and was on target to be the fastest energy transition in human history and then 1 single safety failure that killed nobody wiped out that whole tech tree (Yes that's overly dramatic).
So, I agree more safety regulations were needed, but instead the nuclear industry was basically killed, practically every outstanding project (and there were many) was cancelled and almost no nuclear plants have been built after that. The few that have been built are often close to existing once.
At the same time, coal plants that are MUCH, MUCH more radioactive are allowed to operate. In fact, a nuclear plant that was as radioactive as a coal plant would not be allowed to operate AT ALL.