> What's needed is to figure out how to get nuclear technology into a practical rapid iteration process where we can shake down good ideas vs. bad ideas, and pu

> What's needed is to figure out how to get nuclear technology into a practical rapid iteration process where we can shake down good ideas vs. bad ideas, and put some rigor behind cost and schedule estimates. Sadly this is currently just not possible. You can not get regulatory approval for a prototype beyond a tiny research reactor (that is unsuited to test real production reactors). Thus nuclear companies are forced to directly produce to a production design, and to production regulation and not just that, but also prove operational regulation and so on. This comes with incredible cost and it is very much possible that a nuclear reactor company builds one design and works with it for 20-30 years because doing any substantial redesign would require a completely new regulatory process. Thankfully regulators in Canada and the US have been waking up to the fact that regulation as currently designed have totally crushed innovation and are trying to reform. Canada is leading in this and British, US and Canadian companies all have started to go threw the Canadian regulatory process because of this. But 40 years of fearmongering and regulation introduced right when nuclear scare was at its peak are deeply embedded both in the regulation and the culture of these agency.