And not merely nuclear power plants, but Thorium-fueled Molten Salt plants. They have huge advantages over Uranium-Fueled Light Water plants, not the least of which is that they are not capable of core meltdown. They get too hot, the molten Salt merely leaks out of the jacket, into the containment basin, no spewing of vast quantities of radioactive compounds all over the neighborhood. There is much more thorium in the earth’s crust (some four times as much) as uranium, it is not nearly so hard to process, and it does not become fissile on its own. The thorium reaction REQUIRES the presence of some quantity of “spent” uranium fuel rods, to initiate the fissile chain reaction.
And they can be built so much more quickly than uranium plants, because of the size (Thorium plants may be scaled to much smaller size than uranium plants), and also because huge steam release containment vessels are not necessary.
The engineering was done years ago, the design is feasible, and the plants may be located much closer to the point of end use than Uranium plants, because of the relative safety factor. You know why the thorium plants are not in much wider use? Because they do not produce plutonium (nuclear bomb material), and uranium plants do, which makes the uranium plant valuable as a weapons grade material source.
Sounds like a winner.
Aside from the nuclear weapon fuel, how much does preserving energy monopolies for companies like Duke Energy have to do with the freeze on building?