As for discussions regarding nuclear power - mostly I think they're a waste of time. The US hasn't built a plant since the Three Mile Island incident (1979), and all it takes is a periodic disaster like Chernobyl or Fukushima and public opinion against them is renewed. It's more visceral than rational. Just the way it is.
But you assume it will always be that way. Not so long after Three Mile Island, oil got really cheap again and stayed that way. By the turn of the century, it was at all time lows in real dollars. But things have changed. The oil industry knows that the long term trend in oil prices will be up. This has never happened before. Attitudes towards a lot of things will change. We'll see how nuclear power fares. Maybe the problem will really be that we can't build plants fast enough.
