> If it were 10x cheaper but still had the waste and radioactivity it would be going like gangbusters.

Perhaps. While the amortisation of the costs of Chernobyl etc. over the global nuclear fleet are surprisingly low, the local economic impact was high enough that even governments are cautious about the risks.

e.g. the Chernobyl exclusion zone is about the size of Luxembourg, so I'd expect their government to have had… discussions… with the French government about the safety of the nearby reactor in Cattenom: were it to détoner while the wind was blowing the wrong way, Luxembourg may cease to exist.

(Low risk, but existential if it happens. Not everyone's as enthusiastic as powerful people seem to be today about AI).

To be fair nuclear is as expensive as it is mostly because of radioactivity. There'd be no need for all the heavy concrete, armed guards, and spent fuel disposal if the materials were innocuous.