Are you or the rest of America OK with a nuclear power plant being "in your backyard"? Maybe not literally, but any of the effects of it having problems.
Economists have the term market failure for configurations in which groups of individuals making decisions predictably produces bad outcomes [1].
The last decades seem to imply that there is a broader social failure when high-frequency, echo chambered, outrage-based discussion results in suboptimal debate. This is true from our political media to social media to the quality of private policy debate in America.
Nuclear power seems to exemplify that problem. If a public utility discusses nuclear power, every neighbour in the zip code will come out complaining about radiation. Even if their town is built on radioactive coal ash. Even if they live next to a missile silo, or near a port where our nuclear-powered fleet makes call. Private parties, on the other hand, can cut through the bullshit, which we usually see as bad, but plays a spoiler effect that maybe keeps the system from getting gridlocked.