Reactor safety is an interesting topic in itself. There seem to be some fairly plausible claims that reactors could be much safer and cheaper. But of course one concern with nuclear materials is always the potential for terrorism/​proliferation/​etc., and as a result a certain level of security and secrecy is probably unavoidable. Assuming that the enthusiasts are right that nuclear power is far more expensive and less safe than it could be, I wonder how much of the inefficiency is due to the direct and indirect effects of the security concerns (secrecy and security not only cost money in themselves, they are also inevitably used to cover up incompetence and corruption, and also inevitably engender mistrust which further reduces efficiency), and if so whether there really is any hope that the inefficiency could ever be dramatically reduced, given that the security concerns are not going to go away. Since nuclear power does have some notable advantages (like not producing greenhouse gasses), I do wish that there were some way the enthusiasts could turn out to be right, but the technology has been falling so far short of their hopes for such a long time now. Somehow things appear to be much harder than the enthusiasts expect.
Reactor safety is an interesting topic in itself. There seem to be some fairly plausible claims that reactors could be much safer and cheaper. But of course one concern with nuclear materials is always the potential for terrorism/​proliferation/​etc., and as a result a certain level of security and secrecy is probably unavoidable. Assuming that the enthusiasts are right that nuclear power is far more expensive and less safe than it could be, I wonder how much of the inefficiency is due to the direct and indirect effects of the security concerns (secrecy and security not only cost money in themselves, they are also inevitably used to cover up incompetence and corruption, and also inevitably engender mistrust which further reduces efficiency), and if so whether there really is any hope that the inefficiency could ever be dramatically reduced, given that the security concerns are not going to go away. Since nuclear power does have some notable advantages (like not producing greenhouse gasses), I do wish that there were some way the enthusiasts could turn out to be right, but the technology has been falling so far short of their hopes for such a long time now. Somehow things appear to be much harder than the enthusiasts expect.