Great article! I think it is interesting to look at the history of fast breeder reactors. These reactors offer the ability to generate more fuel than they consume. They can also be used to consume existing high level waste.

Whatever you think about the tech it seems clear the it was rapidly given up on.

The reactors are complex and expensive and there have been many expensive errors leading to failure of projects (e.g. Monju, Japan) but the Russians seem to have been successful in operating two (BN-600, BN-800)

Governments were not keen on continuing to fund the huge costs and they had already got their nuclear fix from inefficient light water reactors (the bombs they crave) - so its was back to fossil fuels!

As we go to increasingly powerful technology potentially bigger disasters become possible (Chernobyl, Covid-19) and to accept the high tech route the public would have to be sanguine about this (any sign of that!)

On Covid-19 I find myself arguing that, most likely, it is a lab leak but the we shouldn't go nuts but just concentrate on risk-benefit analysis and improving lab safety. Not many takers for this point of view!

So pretty much everyone has already chosen collapse over progress, we just await the consequences.