The real problem seems to be lack of standards in manufacturing industry to raise the quality bar across the supply chain to the nuclear levels. If all regular factories of cooling systems and valves and pipes and concretes were operating to meet interoperability and quality standards set by regulatory bodies then the cost of meeting such high quality bar would be amortized over large number of things. Also, the "indirect" costs can be significantly optimized with today's tech – especially with more AI-infused software systems. I think this pattern of the problem is seen in many industries – of lack of regulations for enforcing interoperability requirements and setting quality bar high enough to meet a large number of critical use-cases. We don't build as many big and amazing things anymore, not as much as we used to.
That increased cost would seep into all non-nuclear projects, too, making them more expensive, and making more of the non-viable.
But having cross-industry standards that are known to work for particular application is usually very helpful. If a government could help that by making large enough contracts, and pushing these standards across connected industries in order to fulfill these contracts, that might be good.
Nuclear power generation is already ridiculously safe. The amount of radiation allowed to leak from a power plant in a year is about as much as you receive by having a dozen trans-Atlantic flights. Number of people dying per GWh generated is lower than e.g. wind generation. Coal produces much more radiatoin-induced diseases than nuclear, because the ashes concentrate heavy metals, including some radioactive isotopes.
I don't think it's the industry what pushes for even higher standards.
OTOH some cost-cutting in very mundane things can end up in a disaster. The whole Fukishima catastrophe won't happen if the height of the tsunami-protection wall was not reduced. So when a once-in-a-century earthquake with a once-in-a-century tsunami hit, it proved to be inadequate. But building a concrete wall does no require any special nuclear-reactor-grade materials or skills, it's civil engineering 101.
Stop gaslighting please. I have heard this so many times yet it is not the truth[1]. Most of the time people are basing this on political belief.
> Coal produces much more radiatoin-induced diseases
You can't compare nominal operation of coal with nuclear. Nuclear is very safe when operating nominally but once in a while there is a leak or something, which sometimes even go unnoticed. And it could affect the surrounding for years.
OP isn't "gaslighting" anyone. The U.S. has been using commercial nuclear power for nearly 70 years without a single fatality to members of the general public. It has a better safety record than any other energy source, including solar and wind.
Your own Wikipedia source demonstrates that. Note how many in that long list of accidents have "0" under "Fatalities", and the few U.S. accidents that do have fatalities were either experimental military reactors (i.e., not commercial power), or the fatalities were caused by non-nuclear issues of the sort that exist (and occasionally kill people) in any power plant.
