The 30-year itch America’s nuclear industry struggles to get off the floor

[longship]

7. Agreed. Nuke power tech is antiquated.

Yet, as we all should know, there are technologies which have not been researched. Why?

Some say that weapons research took precedence. I dunno about that. Rather I think that we haven't had the need to pursue other paths. However, science has done precisely that. I really like the modular nuke power generating possibilities, in the short term. We've been launching them into interplanetary space for decades. (Those anti-nuke nuts who opposed them don't understand nuclear physics, let alone the modular nuke tech.)

There are at least two companies who have designs for these power sources which can last decades with minimal maintenance (Voyager hasn't needed any fixes, has it. And it is rapidly leaving the solar system.)

The liquid thorium is a great promise. But the science hasn't caught up to a practical solution to the problem. But the solution is theoretically there. We just have to put (as Bob Novella of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe says) billions of dollars into it.

Just like the mission to land humans on the moon, we can do this. We just need somebody like JFK in the White House to lay down the challenge. It's a vision thing. Some of you may remember that this is the thing that George H W Bush self-confessed that he didn't have a grasp on. Nor has any Republican since.