People see what a good job you've done getting a dam built or a bridge constructed, they vote for you. People don't vote for you because they didn't suffer the consequences of reduced maintenance. People vote against you if you raise taxes to pay for maintenance or if they're inconvenienced by shutdowns while they repair your dam or bridge.
The problem is systemic.
The work is being done, probably not at a scale or pace big enough to meet the needs of the infrastructure (see: all those old and ailing bridges across the country) but it is being done at some level.
We could fulfill the world's nuclear waste storage needs with a couple landfills if the will was there (though any geologist will tell you are better options than near surface storage).
From an ecological perspective nuclear is the best option by a mile because the amount of stuff you need to pull out of the ground, move around, use and dispose of is so small per energy produced.
Tiny local hydro (with natural dam) is the future, but getting a building permit is near impossible. (I leave it to the reader to guess why)
We need to switch off electricity for everything except (low power) computers and networks. = hand pumped water, wood stove for water heater, earth cellar as fridge!
Mass transports are completely over, grow/breed/preserve your food locally!
Even ignoring the CO2 aspect, the particulate emissions from this would be quite problematic in any sort of dense area. Not to mention what fraction of those particulates would end up inside the house...
Also, you don't mention heating (houses, not water). That is a huge part of energy consumption in many parts of the world.
What has changed such that you could not remake the power grid? Do we lack the raw materials or know how?
For a commodore user you are very optimistic about things getting better!
More nuclear plants are getting closed than built.
In short: ((by 2035)) nuclear generating capacity ((will be)) 7.7% out of predicted total electricity generating capacity.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#History
They, however, built renewables like crazy.
Not sure if this is a good example of "know how to build dams". It's a dam foolish design, built on an earthquake fault zone that's been made unstable by the excavation that's being done to build the dam. The design has been changed to include this ridiculous earthfill section (https://www.sitecproject.com/about-site-c/site-c-project-com...) to compensate for the weirdness of the geography there. It's probably going to fail catastrophically at some point and destroy a lot of homes downstream from it, and the controversy over the project basically caused the downfall of BC's last government.
The true cost will be somewhere around 3x the expected, in the long run. They lied through their teeth to offload the lemon onto the feds.
Huge portions of the Comox Valley and Coquitlam are precarious; a strong shake will send a wave of water that will wipe out thousands of homes.
https://thenarwhal.ca/fracking-induced-earthquakes-buffer-zo...
I think the issue is less the lack of knowledge, and more the lack of political will to meaningfully tackle the problem.