> 1) Extrememly high construction costs and cost overruns. This is partly because nuclear is unfairly maligned and is forced to do things with 10x the safety r

> 1) Extrememly high construction costs and cost overruns. This is partly because nuclear is unfairly maligned and is forced to do things with 10x the safety requirements of (e.g.) coal and partly because we have not tried a nuclear rollout at 'scale' (i.e. multiples of a standardized system being planned for construction). > 2) Requires more cooling water than any other power source. Fair enough, but this hardly seems like a show-stopper, especially with improved recycling methods. > 3) Highly radioactive 'spent fuel' must be stored indefinitely. This seems like a small price to pay to implement a solution that would save tens of thousands+ lives per year (i.e. storing the highly radioactive after-products in the air, as with burning massive amounts of coal). From [0]: >> In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. An oversimplification, perhaps, but still valid, especially since new reactors have been designed to reuse spent fuel (hinted at in [0]) anyway and it wouldn't likely need to be permanent storage. > 4) Uranium ore mining and processing consumes significant energy, of the fossil fuel form typically. This is not unique to nuclear energy and it would obviously use less 'fossil fuel form' energy with every new plant brought online. > 5) Catastrophic failure scenarios (Fukushima, Chernobyl) Only if we stick to out-dated designs forever. > 6) Major security issues with high costs. Also fair, but any major center of infrastructure should have high security. The security issues that are more unique to nuclear can/have be/been addressed in new reactor designs (different fuel types, reactors that can't cause meltdowns/explosive scenarios). > 7) Poor compatibility with intermittent and varying energy sources (i.e. solar, wind), as does coal. I'm pretty sure this will be the case for any large, power producing center. Any large-scale solar or wind project will include battery storage anyway, which would act as a transitional buffer between the sources. [0]: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...