We built profitable nuclear plants in the past. One might wonder how with mind bogglingly better designs and a much richer world, we can't afford to build them today. My money is that the blame lies between political reasons and that Nat-Gas is cheap, relatively clean, and wildly abundant energy source in N. America.

Right now in N. America you'd be a fool to build anything but a mid-sized Nat-Gas generator which can be spun up/down quickly and costs less to run than anything else, while gaining major political points for outputting far less pollution than coal.