| Not a single one of the ~700 nuclear power plants has been built without significant government subsidies [1][2]. Additionally, the industry as a whole is shielded from the liability that would otherwise have bankrupted it multiple times. Notably, the clean up from Fukushima will likely take over 100 years, requires tech not yet invented and will likely cost as much as a trillion dollars [3]. In the US, there is a self-insurance fund paid into by the industry, which would've been exhausted 10-20 times over from a Fukushima level disaster. Plus, Congress severely limits liability from nuclear accidents, both on a per-plant and total basis ie the Price-Anderson Act [4]. Next, it seems like it's the taxpayer who is paying to process and store spent nuclear waste, a problem that will persist for centuries. Even with all this the levellized-cost-of-energy ("LCOE") of fission power is incredibly expensive and seemingly going up [5]. Some want to reduce costs by using more off-the-shelf tech and replicating it for scale, most notably with small modular reactors ("SMRs") but this actually makes no sense because larger fission reactors are simply more efficient. [1]: https://theecologist.org/2016/jan/04/after-60-years-nuclear-... [2]: https://www.ucs.org/resources/nuclear-power-still-not-viable... [3]: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-... [4]: https://www.yuccamountain.org/price_anderson.htm [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source |