Illegal to produce a proper prototype, incredibly restricted access to materials, incredibly high cost to entry and pretty much every other regulatory burden that exists. The nuclear industry is probably one of the un-freest markets ever.
And whats stopping the Navy from doing these things is not oil lobbyists, but rather the Navy having no interest in such tasks and that such tasks are not in their political mandate from congress. That's what the DoE and others are for (in theory). Not to mention that the Navy doesn't really care that much about cost.
I don't think you need a free market, if government wants to drive energy policy, then they can do it successfully with nuclear as well, see France. At least successful compared to most nations.
Either method works fine, specially in a market the size of the US. Currently both paths are blocked.
Nuclear power was NEVER going to be very cheap. Even in the 1950s, it was recognized that the cost of the common elements of coal and nuclear plants were going to restrict nuclear to being MAYBE 20% cheaper than coal, at best, and that only if everything broke the right way.
And that maximally optimistic scenario didn't happen. Nuclear plant construction turned out to be more difficult than thought. Even before increases in regulation -- which were going to happen, as new failure modes and near misses were identified -- costs and delays were escalating.
And now, nuclear has two feet in the tech grave. The tech base has decayed away, and continues to degrade. Hoped for cost reductions of Gen III/III+ reactors from experience would require impossible sustained subsidies. This is why hopes are being pinned on small Hail Mary Reactors. They're the only possibility of avoiding nuclear's extinction.
The industry was incredibly young and just starting. Nuclear was actually competing on the free market against coal. Many many more nuclear projects were planed, and nuclear had fastest transition from any energy form to another when it was cut off by regulatory change.
Claiming its early development was a failure is totally wrong.
> Nuclear power was NEVER going to be very cheap. Even in the 1950s, it was recognized that the cost of the common elements of coal and nuclear plants were going to restrict nuclear to being MAYBE 20% cheaper than coal, at best, and that only if everything broke the right way.
That's wrong even for PWR and nuclear was in its infancy still. We know that you can build nuclear reactors much smaller and better over time. PWR are 2% efficient and there is lots of room for improvement.
Yes but coal also has a fuel cost for operation that is much much higher then fuel cost for nuclear. A nuclear plant last longer, doesn't kill close to as many people and doesn't cause global warming. A coal plant would not even be allowed to operate if it was regulated like a nuclear plant, its ironically to radioactive.
> And now, nuclear has two feet in the tech grave. The tech base has decayed away, and continues to degrade. Hoped for cost reductions of Gen III/III+ reactors from experience would require impossible sustained subsidies. This is why hopes are being pinned on small Hail Mary Reactors. They're the only possibility of avoiding nuclear's extinction.
It was literally impossible in the US to license and type of new reactor. Its impossible to buy fuel for prototypes. The DoE requires huge financial and time commitment before they even look at your innovations.
In the 60s new reactor types and experiments were built many a year and now a slightly different fuel for a reactor takes 10 years to go threw regulation.
In 100 years people will look back at this time and laugh at us. The will live in a nuclear society, not in one based on solar, wind and battery power.
The first nuclear building boom in the US went disastrously badly on costs. That's ultimately why it ended, not accidents or regulations. The economics just didn't work.
Forbes magazine in Feb 1985 said it well:
"The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible."
The only places in the world where nuclear has "succeeded" are those where opaque financial systems have cloaked the true cost of the technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs_Coordinating_Co...
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2019/01/17/nuclear-plant-construct...
The world was on track to essentially replace fossil fuels with nuclear on a pace that was outside of human experience.
Humanity was quickly entering a new age. But then a small number of accidents lead to a political change, witch lead to regulatory changes that essentially killed nuclear power in most places.
Since the US regulatory system changed the amount of new plants built has essentially gone to 0, far below replacement. And many of the same effects were mirrored in most of the west with the US taking the lead.
The worst thing is that the new regulatory system not only killed the building of new plants, but essentially ended any hope of getting new reactor types into commercial use. No new reactor type have been licensed since then.
This seems rather strange because in the 60-70 new reactor-types were build at a rapid rate, constant innovation even with relatively small amounts of money. All of this was destroyed. Even in places where nuclear power is so clearly a huge win like NASA.
Nuclear fuel storage issues has entered into a political limbo where anti-nuclear lobby has essentially managed to deadlock the whole process and can since claim that nuclear storage issues can't be solved. At the same time the government collects money from nuclear power stations to handle the waste issue.
This is one of the saddest and most depressing stories in human history if you ask me. There is 0 scientific or technical reason why shouldn't have cheap nuclear power even in remote places, even in space.