Thiel skips the fact that Chernobyl is uninhabitable for thousands of years (save bloggers on motorcycles), all of the dispossessed persons and extra 40k+ cancer deaths. Plus Fukashima. Big PWR/BWR reactors will always be too inherently dangerous because of high pressures and too expensive to build, regulate and insure (in the US, without insurance and NRC approval, there is no project). And the risks of dual-purpose reactors and long-term storage for large amounts of waste.

Taylor Wilson's TED talk on low pressure, molten salt, modular reactors built as standardized modules with a scram / recycle pool underneath and made in a factory is one of the best ways to go. Smaller, isolated, modular setups limit failure risk compared to a single reactor having a big, explosive meltdown. The other one is thermal generation using chip-like technology with tiny amounts of radiological material isolated in individual "wells" making it safer, more efficient and scalable for many types of battery and generation use-cases.

I think we can do fission safer, cheaper and smarter, responsibly, but repeating the same failures by taking the same risks without learning from the past is inherently dumb.

Disclaimer: nuclear energy consultancy alum