The best is the enemy of the good. I used to work on design of onshore wind farms. Protecting the public was as simple as measuring the distance to the closes

The best is the enemy of the good. I used to work on design of onshore wind farms. Protecting the public was as simple as measuring the distance to the closest road or building. So that if the turbine failed catastrophically it would not hurt anyone. Add a big red flashing light and aviation is safe. Compare this to nuclear where you need to understand an incredibly complex machine and how it interacts with an unpredictable environment and people. And you need to employ expensive nuclear engineers and scientists to do the work, and then check the work repeatedly. Sounds expensive! I would love it if nuclear energy could be a success. But why not do wind/solar/battery as well in the meantime. I certainly agree that large power companies can be unfair to the public. Particularly when renewables has such big upfront costs. It's like renting a house, paying off someone else's mortgage, and never getting to own anything. However, there is a huge benefit in connecting large generators because they are connected to the high voltage transmission system. Power can be exported to where it is needed. In comparison generation that is attached to low voltage networks are more limited in how much can be exported longer distance. Battery storage in particular is much more versatile when used at the grid level.