But these experimental reactors are even more expensive. E.g. the Superthingy in France cost over $9B Euros.

I wasn't counting the waste processing issues in my thought experiment - I was thinking more about the life of the plant itself.

The economics of nuclear is a complicated topic that depends on a whole mess of assumptions - http://en.wikipedia....her_power_sources But when many/most of these experimental reactors are shut down after only a few years, and often produce little if any electric power due to engineering issues, then I think a reasonable person can conclude that they're too experimental right now (or in the near future).

You may be right that they would be farther along if the AEC and NRC and so forth spent more money on development. We'll never know. But since we know a lot more about the problems with nuclear power now than we did in the 1950s and 1960s, since the federal government isn't dumping vast amounts of money into nuclear R&D any more, and since the public is not sold on the need and benefit/risk equation for nuclear, it's a tougher row to hoe now than it was then.

It would be different if we could say, "Look, we spent $100B on nuclear power research in the 1950s-1970s, we learned all the issues and have this great, safe, cheap, reliable power technology that just needs some tweaking before it's ready to go. We're 95% of the way there!" But it doesn't work that way. We learned a lot about stuff that doesn't work. There are still complex issues that need to be solved and it's going to cost a lot of money to get to the point where we have reliable power reactors based on a new fuel technology.

Cheers,
Scott.