It’s complicated. 

As @dwr.eth said, NRC and NIMBYism are problems. But really what’s hard is that they’re expensive to finance, the industry has made a lot of mistakes by pursuing different reactor designs instead of just repeating one thing that works, and our workforces have atrophied in the decades that have passed without building reactors. 

On top of that, since the build reactor buildout from the 1960s-80s, many states broke up vertically integrated utilities and liberalized electricity markets, which failed to create the right incentives for big, long term infrastructure maintenance and construction and made financing a mega project like a nuclear plant virtually impossible. 

It’s no coincidence that Georgia, which still has the old monopoly model, is the one state that has built new reactors.

Not directly related, but i hadnt yet put together the nuclear-desalination possibilities

China is erasing deserts from its map.
By far, 65 million mu of desert has been greened. That's around the same area of Denmark. https://t.co/BDnRvvlt60

One really cool thing we can do with cheap electricity is desalinate tons of ocean water and transform deserts into green oases. 

With affordable energy powering reverse osmosis plants, we can strip salt from seawater on a massive scale, creating a supply of fresh water. 

Then

isabelle 🪐

Not directly related, but i hadnt yet put together the nuclear-desalination possibilities https://x.com/isabelleboemeke/status/1903792436956041283

Believer, husband, dad, optimist // Strategy & design // Expert dabbler // Steward of /pony /midwest tylerhilker.com