It's because there are a lot of very, very powerful people making a very, very large amount of money selling fossil fuels to Americans, and they fervently want Americans to continue fearing and opposing nuclear power.
In 1987, nuclear electricity in the US displaced 260 million barrels of oil, 1200 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 90 million tons of coal that one year alone. And that's a lot of lost profits for fossil-fuel pushers.
All cynicism aside, if we had the sanity to fully exploit nuclear power (current tech and LFTR) for our electricity, if NO part of the U.S. electrical grid were run off of hydrocarbon fuels, I wonder how far we’d see the price of gasoline fall owing to the reduction in fuel gas, fuel oil and NatGas consumption in the power generating sector.
“and they fervently want Americans to continue fearing and opposing nuclear power. “
Teachers and their unions are a part of the program to keep Americans afraid of nuclear power.
I have noticed that the Greens howl loudest over any real attempt to get away from foreign oil.