You are so welcome to your opinions GoGlenroy and I may even share a few of them. Certainly I agree with, "In any event nuclear reactors will probably be a significant source of energy by the end of this century."
Whatever people believe about anthropogentic carbon dioxide, the entire world shares the one atmosphere and chances are, adding unnaturally to it will very likely encounter increasing worldwide political resistance. Notable recent failures notwithstanding, we can expect ongoing international pressure to reduce emissions. Nuclear power has the potential to allow us to do this and gain substantial economic advantage at the same time.
The world is emerging into a new age of nuclear power generation. Streamlined but rigorous safety standards combine with simplified, generation 3+reactors to map out a path towards much less capital expensive nuclear power. Gen 3+ reactor designs are already under construction and very soon we will have actual cost data rather than projections. These power plants are designed for safety from the outset and are orders of magnitude safer than older designs. This "safety up" design has provided much of the simplification and this in turn produces cost savings.
The simplified reactors are cheaper to build but more importantly, their ultrahigh safe design allows the streamlining of approval protocols. In the past, delays in approvals have caused far too much cost blowout.
Generation 3+ reactors have a design life of 60 years with a refurbishment option allowing for a 120 year design life. The design allows for spent fuel to be retained at the plant for the entire life of the facility. The cores of these reactors are configured to allow greater burnup, resulting in lower transuranic concentrations in the spent fuel. Fuel can be low enriched uranium, MOX (reprocessed fuel) and even thorium with some designs.
The current federal government has an unambiguous "no nuclear power reactor" policy. However this need not stop the development of a regulatory framework or even the identification of potential reactor sites.
