Yes, in large part because the safeguards are not nearly as strong. (And a lot of the rest is because the safeguards impede research on how to make nuclear cheaper.)
Arguable, but I won't. The strength of the safeguards is not the problem.
The surface problem is that the rules keep changing. That's part of the expense: repeated redesign, over and over.
The underlying problem that causes that, is that western societies do not want nuclear power. More: they actively dislike it.
It's all academic now anyway, at least as far as stationary electric power generation is concerned. PV power and storage is far cheaper, and the growth of the gap is accelerating.
The surface problem is that the rules keep changing. That's part of the expense: repeated redesign, over and over.
The underlying problem that causes that, is that western societies do not want nuclear power. More: they actively dislike it.
It's all academic now anyway, at least as far as stationary electric power generation is concerned. PV power and storage is far cheaper, and the growth of the gap is accelerating.