from what I remember from undergrad Energy Policy, the problem with nuclear is scale. Because they take decades to turn a profit and require enormous amounts of capital, they're unappealing to energy companies. Cost of capital overpowers everything else. Pretty much the only organizations capable of doing that are governments. But nuclear takes multiple election cycles to build, longer to pay off, and also has really bad PR. So governments are not champing at the bit to start new programs. In fact they seem to be extending the lifetime of the old, shitty plants originally scheduled to be decommissioned, and when they actually do build new plants it's more of the old designs.

If you actually have a reactor program it's great. If you've already spent the huge sum to get one RBMK designed/built/operationally tested you can crank out twenty more. But nobody's been starting programs like that in decades so it's probably too late. e: actually I can't support this and don't have more time to research. talking out of my ass. not sure how meaningful existing programs are