The Japanese, who generally favor quality, have been having nuclear accidents and trying to hide them. I wonder how China will do with their preference for cheap. At least they are far away from us.
About the only way nuclear power could be financially viable in America at this time is if the plants were made offshore on wheels for an "undisclosed buyer", then shipped in real quick to a surprise location and turned on. The 20 years it takes to build a nuclear plant in this country is too target rich for our lawyers.
Nuclear power is very cost-effective once it is built.
The reasons that nuclear power took long to get built was due to a combination of Govt changing regs on the fly during the 1970s and 1980s, a process where you needed first a construction permit and *then* permit to operate. Now, a lot of those problems were identified and fixed.
As for safety, LWR and BWR reactors are very safe in the US and in other countries as well. Japan has had a few problems with their sodium reactors, fortunately the US no longer has any of these in operation. We should use lead-bismuth instead of sodium for our fast reactors.