I'm pro nuclear in principle (it sure beats fossils), but I do get the feeling that the era we are in is not right for such big monolithic infrastructure projects. The costs tend to balloon and the private companies behind them have difficulties in delivering and meeting the stringent quality standards that nuclear requires (for good reasons). See for example the utter failure that has been Olkiluoto 3[1] or the recent bankruptcy of Westinghouse[2]
It’s puzzling how 50 years later, with much better technology, we can’t build plants on the scale of what was built in the 60s.
The US navy uses nuclear reactors for their aircraft carriers and they don’t seem to have the same problems getting them built and installed that commercial power operators do now. I wonder what makes the difference, I tried googling but couldn’t find a good comparison. Perhaps it is just not commercially viable but works on a military scale budget?
To succeed with large project you generally have to develop competence in-house first to know what you are doing. Today it is quite unpopular, at least in western countries, for the government to do that. When things become more accessible, it doesn't necessarily mean they become simpler. In fact there is often added complexity. It isn't just nuclear power plants, but all kinds of infrastructure.
Laying pavement itself is likely a very small part of building an interstate system, in terms of success. Though, I am sure there are e.g. cities that can barely do that. I mean, whenever I see a video from the US the streets always seems broken, at least in cities. Large projects today seems to fail even before any actually manual work is done.
Well nuclear powerplants were literally a byproduct of nuclear weapons research. America needed a lot of plutonium. The nuclear industry was of vital interest to national defence.
Also those old powerplants were not built with safety in mind. In my country they literally dumped nuclear waste into the sea. Back in the sixties they were cutting corners, something we couldn't do today (I hope).
Or have things changed?