Maybe it's expensive because it's regulated to death.
> Plus, the spent fuel has no place to go, it stays on site in concrete casks, potentially forever.
Great! Seriously, there are zero problems with that.
'In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.' [0]
> Maybe it's expensive because it's regulated to death
If by “regulated to death”, you mean, “heavily subsidized and granted special liability regimes to reduce individual operator risk exposure”, that would be true.
20 years, or even 50 years, in the context of critical infrastructure and state level debt obligations is not that long. Nor is it sensible to consider “competing technical innovations” as if, say, solar and nuclear were mutually exclusive technologies. California can and should build both, now, and not wait for some other technology or price point to come and save us.
> Plus, the spent fuel has no place to go, it stays on site in concrete casks, potentially forever.
Great! Seriously, there are zero problems with that.
'In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.' [0]
[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...