The funding problem is because of the safety problem. There are high regulatory costs associated with building new (fission) nuclear power plants, because: * I

The funding problem is because of the safety problem. There are high regulatory costs associated with building new (fission) nuclear power plants, because: * If you don't regulate the materials and fuels used for fission nuclear power plants, most countries could easily build nuclear weapons, and * If you build fission power plants badly, or maintain them poorly, everyone and everything around them dies in a large radius, and in an even larger radius gets severely sickened. And this radius is poisoned effectively forever. If there weren't safety problems inherent to fission nuclear reactors, they would be much cheaper to build as well as being much cheaper to operate — and thus easier to fund. That's part of why fusion reactors are interesting: theoretically they should work just as well if not better than fission reactors at converting fuels to energy; the fuel is more prevalent and cheaper; and there should be lower costs associated with building and operating them since the risks are lower. We just don't know how to build them yet, and figuring that out is expensive.