> But no, we collectively decided that no amount of engineering could possibly make nuclear acceptably safe

This is such bullshit. We have reactors that are 40 years old still operating safely. And in the 40 years since, safety systems have improved considerably. A modern reactor could probably have a 100 year service life and no accidents.

But such is the world we live in: people are scared of stuff they shouldn't be, and ignorant of all that should scare them.

As far as I'm aware, the US Navy has operated hundreds of nuclear reactors for more than 60 years without any major incidents. That's several thousand reactor-years of positive experience.

(They did lose two nuclear powered submarines, the Thresher and Scorpion, but in neither case is a problem with the reactors believed to be the cause. Though the Thresher's reactor is thought to have SCRAMed in response to it's control circuitry being shorted out, causing a loss of propulsion.)

The reason we stopped building nuclear power palnts is that growth in energy demand suddenly slowed or stopped, nuclear power plants turned out to be more expensive than promoted, and because of a 1978 law called PURPA that opened up the grid to non-utility generators.

> nuclear power plants turned out to be more expensive than promoted

We didn't suddenly forget how to economically build nuclear power plants. What changed was that

> we collectively decided that no amount of engineering could possibly make nuclear acceptably safe

and prices rose without bound to reflect that decision.

You're repeating the same tired pro-nuclear fallacies. Nuclear power plants in the US were losing the fight against rising costs even before TMI.