Actually it is politically viable, we're building the first new addition to our nuclear fleet for 30 years: http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/a-65b-federal-loa...

That plant broke ground before Fukushima. How many permits have been issued since then: 0. Perfectly good nuclear plants like Vermont Yankee have been shut down (decided not to renew operating license) due to "concerned citizens. We were headed to a nuclear power renascence until that accident happened and took the wind out of the sails.

If it had taken the wind out of the sales then we could have skipped the $6.5 billion federal loan guarantee we issued last February, which is mentioned in the article I linked to.

As for Vermont Yankee, the operating license was renewed in 2011 and remains valid until 2032, but Entergy said that a mix of price controls and economic inefficiency for a small single-reactor design made it uneconomical to continue operations: http://www.entergy.com/news_room/newsrelease.aspx?NR_ID=2769

Vermont's senate voted against a future renewal of the plant's license, but since this wouldn't have been an issue for almost two decades I don't think it's that big of a deal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_Pl...

The fact is that the federal government is putting its money where its mouth is as regards Georgia, and with the President about to announce a target of cutting US CO2 emissions by 30%, the door is open for other nuclear projects. A bigger problem for the industry has been the fall in power prices due to the huge surplus of natural gas that currently obtains in the US, with no sign of decline any time soon.

One thing that carbon taxes and cap-and-trade have going for them: they would increase the pent-up demand for nuclear power, allowing people to build coalitions for a viable, clean, safe future based on nuclear energy.