Actually, the public anti nuclear stance and fear-mongering lead to significant political changes. It wasn't just the environmental movement, it was much more b

Actually, the public anti nuclear stance and fear-mongering lead to significant political changes. It wasn't just the environmental movement, it was much more broad and wide spread. No politicians want to be seen a pro-nuclear. The regulatory system totally changed, from the AEC to a much more restrictive and passive NRC. There is a clear change in the history of nuclear with before that all sorts of interesting research and new reactors, since then hardly anything. The regulatory change isn't the only factor, but its one important factor. A larger non-nuclear issue is simply that in the US any large scale project is extremely expensive, nuclear or not. And the regulatory system makes is insanely hard to license any other kind of reactor in the US. And if you want to regulated something new, you have to pay the regulator for all of their time. And they don't give you a timeline. Without billion $ and investors willing to not know what is gone happen for many, many years, alternative reactors are essentially impossible. Sadly the US is about the only market that is theoretically free enough where any market driven innovation could actually happen.