The biggest reason for cost overruns in the US is that the companies that are doing the work make more money from cost overruns. The way nuclear plant financing

The biggest reason for cost overruns in the US is that the companies that are doing the work make more money from cost overruns. The way nuclear plant financing works in the US is that taxpayers and ratepayers ultimately pay for the cost no matter what the cost is and how much the overruns are. The cost of the plant with all the overruns usually shows up on the electric bills of the consumers, so the more overruns the more one can charge the consumers. This overcharging may not happen fully intentionally, it may be happening as kind of a long bureaucratic slide into convenience but it is happening. Now you may think there is an easy solution for this. Funding for these plants should be changed, so that private parties pay for them and they get their money by selling the electricity produced by the plants. I.e., they should be funded the way any private business is supposed to be funded in a capitalist economy. Sounds like a good idea at first, but there is a catch. If that is the rule, nobody in their right mind will ever build a nuclear plant ever again. Gas, wind and solar are all so much cheaper now. And yes, even considering back ups for when the wind is not blowing, wind is much much cheaper than nuclear. So the obvious solution is just not to build nuclear. Even if you do not consider the real risk to human life, it is a an incredibly expensive extravagance. If you do consider the risk to human life it is absolute madness.