The advances in reactor design, especially from a safety standpoint, are pretty amazing IMHO. Shut it down and and start building these newer reactors like crazy is what I say.
They're trying to build newer EPRs in Europe, but 3 out of 3 are a decade plus delayed and way the hell over the budget. (The only ones actually operating are in China, and even those were years late.)
What always seems especially disingenuous in these discussions, is the abnormal focus on nuclear projects going over budget (regardless if it's a first pass or not).
It's almost a truism at this point, to say that a look large infrastructure project is going to go over time and over budget. But when nuclear is in the picture, this seems to be wheeled out like its somehow a fault of nuclear alone.
Perhaps because solar and wind are orders of magnitude less complex. So they are less likely to go massively over budget. Because most of the work streams can be bought at fixed cost from reliable contractors.
