[donny2018]

I mean, in 60-s and 70-s, France and US were stamping out nuclear reactors like hotdogs, building them literally by dozens. And they were moderately cheap. I don't know what happened afterwards, but now building a nuke plant has become a nightmare.

[seanmcdirmid]

My dad was apart of that building boom (starting at Hanford). In 1986 or so, he went from making $200k/year as a contractor to…< $40k/year in Mississippi as an FTE for a newly built power station there (after being unemployed for 2 years).

There was a strong push by the government to build, and when that evaporated, all activity just stopped over night.

[stephen_g]

There were huge evolutions in the designs for safety (because of some big accidents), which I think did make them a lot more expensive. I’ve also heard stricter requirements for things like cooling can contribute - i.e. needing cooling towers instead of just rejecting waste heat into bodies of water, which is quite bad environmentally.