The unfortunate thing is that the extreme lack of investment in nuclear energy means we don't have a ton of experts in this area.

Let's ask the ad engineers. :) I don't like the historical alternatives but our current society (in general) approach for social-economical organization reached it's threshold and made us waste human potential tackling artificial problems while ignoring those that were right in front of us. But who knows as those "blind investments" generated knowledge that might be critical for the next decades.