NuScale/Fluor claim they can bring the UAMPS project in Idaho online by 2027 at an amortized average energy cost of about $55/MWh.

https://www.powermag.com/nuscale-uamps-kick-off-idaho-smr-nu...

That would make it more expensive than onshore wind($45/MWh) and solar yet($48/MWh) cheaper than all other sources of energy including natural gas($59/MWh). Double the final cost of energy to $110/MWh and it would still be in theory cheaper than the average for coal($115/MWh). Granted I'm pulling these numbers from Wikipedia so it's not that simple but the numbers aren't unrealistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

South Korea builds nuclear plants in < 5 years. Japan < 4 years. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2016/10/123_215869...

We regulated the industry so much that we made nuclear plants almost entirely economically unviable.

Some of the regulations are good, some are bad - and a lot were born out of irrational fears about an immature industry that we didn't fully understand at the time.

There is no reason a nuclear plant cannot be economically viable. They're all over Europe, Japan, Russia, China and I'm sure other countries as well.