> US has high energy costs, it can never be cost competitive.

A non-trivial percentage of that is artificial.

When push comes to shove and enormous profits (and anything remotely resembling national security) are at stake, the US is decent at removing artificial problems.

You've already seen a ton of that related to chips and data center build outs.

Why is solar more expensive in the US than China? Mainly tariffs. Same for batteries.

Why is nuclear more expensive in the US than South Korea? The government.

Why is SMR never going to beat conventional nuclear if you remove artificial problems? Physics. Though specialized applications will be viable with SMR.