How Nuclear Power Went From Cheap to Impossibly Expensive | Free the Power

In this Free the Power episode, IEA Andy Mayer sits down with writer and policy analyst Alex Chalmers (Trauma Machine Substack & Works in Progress) to unravel why nuclear power went from cheap and fast-to-build in the 1960s to eye-wateringly expensive today. Starting with fruit-fly radiation studies that won Hermann Muller a Nobel Prize and seeded the “no safe dose” dogma, they trace the cascading effects of U.S. weapons-testing mishaps, the birth of ALARA/ALARP regulation, and how a safety culture of ever-thicker concrete, cable and paperwork priced private builders out of the market. Alex walks us through milestone moments—the Castle Bravo fallout scare, Three Mile Island’s zero-fatality meltdown, and the UK’s decision to demand extra HVAC filters on an advanced boiling-water reactor that would have reduced public exposure by less than “the radiation you get from eating one banana.” The discussion sets out the hidden trade-offs regulators ignore (fossil-fuel particulates kill far more people than low-dose radiation) and why cost escalations of 176 % in a decade were largely debt-finance and delay, not engineering fate. Looking ahead, they debate ways to break the ratchet—smarter risk thresholds, local benefit-sharing, and the UK government’s new Nuclear Regulatory Task Force, which could let Britain reclaim its 1960s lead in affordable, abundant, low-carbon power. If you care about climate targets, energy bills or technological optimism, this conversation is for you. Like, subscribe and hit the bell to catch future Free the Power episodes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit insider.iea.org.uk/subscribe