[threeseed]

And who is going to pay for all of this R&D and investment.

The market doesn't want it, banks don't want to finance it, researchers aren't interested and startups can't afford to.

You can't fight against market dynamics when you're talking about capital expenditure this high.

[fraboniface]

This has indeed been a big blocker, but the article is proof that the market now wants it. And there are plenty of new nuclear startups, as well as interested researchers. What was lacking so far was a real need energy-wise (in the absence of a high carbon tax) and regulatory stability/transparency.

Edit: also, sodium fast reactors have existed for 20 years. The R&D has mostly already been done for that tech. But the lack of projects make it stuck to TRL 8.