So, where is the free market shitting out nuclear power? Anywhere?
Yes, with extra steps.
Regulations, more so than their impact on price, cost calendar time.
Time, especially for already-lengthy and complicated infrastructure projects, costs volume.
And low volume means high prices and a slow pace of improvement.
Henry Ford wouldn't have built many automobiles, or improved them as quickly as he did, if every one needed to be individually permitted by multiple government agencies.
The failure of nuclear is that it never standardized and scaled to industrially-efficient volumes (outside of arguably France) at exactly the point that it could have technologically done so (~1970s). Had Offshore Power Systems^ begun producing floating reactors at volume in Jacksonville, FL in the late 70s, we'd be having a very different conversation about cheap American nuclear power today.
nuclear being expensive is also kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. the costs for certified equipment are high because the market is small and not competitive, because nobodys building nuclear, because everyone knows its too expensive to build and not worth it.
the only solution i see is massive state investment like what france was doing in the 70s. that would upset the market purists but its more practical than trying to push the industry with a neoliberal hands off approach.
Why would they tack that on at the end of a very long sentence? Because they don't want to talk about the loss of USS Scorpion. They mention the sub once on the whole page and even misspell it as "Scorpian". Would not trust them as a source.
None of the theories put forward about the loss of the USS Scorpion have involved the reactor. Maybe they didn't discuss it because it wasn't relevant?
Ok
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-06/Gray%20Bo...
Naval reactors are inherently safer due to their small size and unlimited supply of cooling water. A meltdown is virtually impossible, worst-case scenario you could always use a firehose and a diesel pump to inject sea water into the reactor. On the other hand: you really don't want to overfill the reactor: a naval reactor "going solid" rips itself apart, killing the ship.
Commercial reactors are the exact opposite. Overfilling them is not a huge deal as there are plenty of ways to relieve pressure, but underfilling them can easily lead to a meltdown. Even after shutdown it needs active cooling for a decent while to prevent residual decay from overheating it.
The TMI reactor operators were trained on naval reactors, but they were operating a commercial reactor. During the incident they were too busy trying to prevent it from overfilling to notice that it was actually cooking itself dry - so they intentionally shut down the emergency cooling system!
So no, saying that the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program has led to zero accidents is both wrong, and completely irrelevant to the subject here.
https://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/alfieri1/
To put it another way, the only way to blame the Naval Reactor program is if you believe in a scenario where equipment failure of the control panel to notify operators of the exact problem that you described did not contribute to the incident. Once you get to “equipment failure doesn’t cause problems, the United States Navy causes problems” you’re pretty squarely in fantasticism territory, though.
Lmao at “three quarters of a century of institutional knowledge isn’t relevant because I don’t think you can build a nuclear reactor by water for some reason” while talking about a nuclear power plant on an island