[jfoutz]

IIRC, in France every reactor was the same model. If an issue was discovered, all of them would be upgraded to handle the problem. It also allowed a little more workforce mobility. It is a good idea.

I just don't see how we can get there from here. Nuclear isn't particularly cheap (but yes, a good chunk of the expense comes from regulation). So there's no obvious reason to choose that over any alternative. We could certainly change tax structure to force oil and coal to be more expensive, but even simple changes to account for externalities are met with massive massive resistance.

[eru]

Pricing the exernalities of oil and coal into them might be quite a good idea---especially since it encourages boring things like just using less heating or driving less. Those boring options are seldom encouraged in `politician picks the winner in a beauty contest' subsidies.

But yes, we won't see that..

I wonder why noone has ever tried selling eg a carbon tax (or any kind of broad and useful tax) in combination with basic income? If you earmark the windfall from a carbon tax to be equally shared by all residents, you get quite a few natural allies and take the wind out of the sail of arguments along the lines of "think of all the poor people".