If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd looking to nuclear for data centers?

I can think of two possible reasons: (1) it's America, and it's very hard to build anything, and nuclear is smaller and fits on site, and (2) we have an administration openly hostile to solar and wind energy for political "vibes" reasons.

Vibes are dumb. I think looking back this is going to be seen as an age of people deciding based more on vibes, which ultimately comes down to tribal dog whistles, than reason.