Nuclear power as we know it might be ok but for that reprocessing issue. The Brits finally had enough of a need that they pushed legislation permitting movement of nuclear waste for the express purpose of reprocessing into useable fuel. They have quality trackage, thorough testing of storage cars, and most importantly a well-heeled rail management office, with a lot of power to ensure the rail operators follow the rules, and Dave real consequences when the rules are broken.

Meanwhile, we’ve had that recent large derailment of toxic chemicals in Ohio that I’m sure we’ll be in people’s memory for a while, particularly when we start discussing carting spent fuel around. Currently poor infrastructure in the US? ✔️ Low-value penalties sure to a corrupted political system? ✔️

Look, part of this is more than a technical problem, it’s also a risk management and social contract problem. What do we do about a poorly regulated national rail system? How do we reassure people whose property may be seriously damaged by a potential spill that they’ll be made fully whole again? This applies anywhere we’re doing this, not solely the US.

Things are changing for HVDC, it can in fact be used for national-level distribution backbones with much lower cumulative loss vs an equivalent AC system.

Currently there’s a $10 million grant to figure out how to make IGBT-based VSCs cost less, and based on that alone, it sounds like the US is looking at making that exact backbone, running east to west, with branches running north to south. Local distribution would take advantage of existing AC infrastructure, segmented into smaller subsystems.