why we don’t rely on nuclear power plants more, especially these days
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There are many issues here but for a very ELI5 answer:
When we were first researching nuclear power, we had a few options. Some were safer, some cheaper and one also made the material we needed for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the people in charge chose the weapons option and scrapped the rest.
This means that even though nuclear plants are less harmful than coal, oil and gas plants (those are responsible for many many more deaths than nuclear) They are still dangerous and very highly regulated. There is lots and lots of red tape and inspections and very expensive things added to every new build.
The big added expenses and all of the fossil fuel powerplant owners and suppliers making things up about nuclear plants (fear mongering etc.) Means new plants are hard to get approved to be built in countries in the West. A couple of big profile incidents in older powerplants rightly got a lot of press, but this turned people against nuclear power instead of driving change in the industry to the better options.
Luckily many countries ARE building new, safer designed nuclear power plants. Also, most importantly, the research into the much cheaper and safer types of nuclear power (that also produce many times less waste) has restarted. If things progress well, thorium generators will soon be being built as new much safer nuclear power plants worldwide to make up the energy shortfall before we can transition to even cleaner options.
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