The main reason is cost. Then gas plants undercut everything which had a steam cycle and the nuclear industry has been living on government handouts ever since. Alternating between "small and modular" and "big and efficient" to have something to try and hype with.
> By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.[48]
> Over-commitment to nuclear power brought about the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a public agency which undertook to build five large nuclear power plants in the 1970s. By 1983, cost overruns and delays, along with a slowing of electricity demand growth, led to cancellation of two WPPSS plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, which is one of the largest municipal bond defaults in U.S. history. The court case that followed took nearly a decade to resolve.[49][50][51]
> Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled,[52] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Al Gore has commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States:
> Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.[53]
And instead of those nuclear plants they mostly build coal plants that are still costing money and hurting people one a massive scale.
If coal has been correctly accounted for in terms of human cost even outside of carbon, nuclear would have looked far better.
And what those numbers quote actually miss is that there was a period of massive over order of all kinds of plants, including coal that were canceled during 1970s economic problems. So the fact that people were over optimistic about the future in that period doesn't mean nuclear was bad. The economy simply didn't continue to boom as much as some people had predicted.
Even back then the inventiveness for US public utilities were structured in a way that makes it more viable to buy things that require continues fuel cost, rather then up front investment.
The simple fact is, externalizes include nuclear power would have dominated and would still do today. Short sighted politics and public fear is the reason it didn't happen.
Looking back at it, its actually a no brainer and countries like France who did it certainty didn't regret it. No massive pollution from coal plants with horrible environmental destruction around them, no dirty air, no mass destruction of country side because of coal mining. Far better energy independence.
> Alternating between "small and modular" and "big and efficient" to have something to try and hype with.
With molten salt or even just molten salt cooled reactors, you can be both small and efficient there is no conflict.
Had the US continued to invest in nuclear next generation reactors were well into development. However these were canceled. And very little private innovation took place from the on. Partly because it was incredibly hard to beat coal and later gas on cost and partly because regulation were hard coded to only be viable for PWR type reactors.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
> By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.[48]
> Over-commitment to nuclear power brought about the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a public agency which undertook to build five large nuclear power plants in the 1970s. By 1983, cost overruns and delays, along with a slowing of electricity demand growth, led to cancellation of two WPPSS plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, which is one of the largest municipal bond defaults in U.S. history. The court case that followed took nearly a decade to resolve.[49][50][51]
> Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled,[52] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Al Gore has commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States:
> Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.[53]