One thing that IMO really prevents the adoption of more nuclear power is the lack of disposal options. I'm aware that Yucca Mountain got cancelled, and we could recycle a lot of it, but choose not to (France apparently recycles a lot). So before we even broach building more, we need to decide how to dispose of what we've got.
One of the last Nuclear power stations built in the US (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Texas_Nuclear_Generating_Station ) is built about 30-40 miles from my house. It took 20 years or more to build. I went to school with lots of kids whose parents moved here to work at "STP" or South Texas Project. They moved here when we were in elementary school, and they finished the plant when we were in Jr High. I'm sure there were people who worked there longer than that, but I do recall how many people worked there during construction.
They were going to add on to it in the mid-2000's, but escalating costs and Fukishima incident got that stopped. I do know that the Nuke plant is built literally in the middle of nowhere, nothing around it for at least 5 miles. As a kid I just always assumed that all Nuke plants were built in the middle of nowhere, and then I saw TV shows featuring Nuke plants like right across from people's houses and they can see the domes from their backyard. That's wild to me.
I wanted to ask UTEE since he's (obviously) an EE. I heard that even though the grid spans thousands of miles, the energy produced by generators needs to be consumed within a few hundred miles of where it's generated. I knew there would be losses the further out they go and higher voltages can help off-set transmission distances, but what is the real story? I just naturally assumed that you could easily build power plants hundreds of miles from nowhere and I never understood why they didn't build more like that.
