>>469927Nuclear power is very advanced, it's using the properties of matter that are way more powerful. From the point of physics there is just way more juice inside the core of an atom than its electron cloud.
Not using the core of atoms means technology gets stuck at a certain level. Not just for energy production but also for other applications. Eventually we'll want to mess around with the nucleus of the atom for other purposes like material science or possibly computing.
Nuclear power makes a lot of economic sense it uses comparably very little resources and labor inputs to produce absolutely huge quantities of energy. That means very low cost energy.
The main reasons why the capitalist mode of production has problems harnessing nuclear power is because it's a long term technology, it takes 2-5 years to build a plant, and then it runs for 40-60 years and then it takes another 2-5 years to decommission it. Which means that the entire cycle of an atomic power plant might be up-to 70 years. Most capitalists don't have that kind of patience.
Nuclear power-plants make electricity, and while electricity is the highest quality of energy we can make, it's also much harder to commodify, because you can't just fill up a tanker and then ship it to a customer. There sort off is a fix for that, i'll com back to it later.
Let me be clear here capitalism isn't the yard-stick against which we measure reality, if capitalism isn't able to deploy a useful technology that means capitalism is insufficient, not the technology. In Marxist jargon one would say capitalism is a fetter on the productive forces.
I think that if you want to run nuclear power within the capitalist mode of production the easiest way to do it, is by having a state-run energy production that provides super low cost energy to capitalist industries. It's basically energy as an infrastructure/subsidy.
If you are absolutely stuck on capitalist logic, you can use a nuclear reactor to produce hydrogen gas directly by thermalizing water, and then you can sell the hydrogen like natural-gas (either in gaseous or liquefied form). You have some conversion losses but you'll get something that's easy to commodify. As far as i know Liquid hydrogen is compatible with most of the stuff that's used for LNG and should be more or less a drop-in replacement.
Nuclear-to-hydrogen has political advantages as well, because you don't need to put the power-plant into anybodies backyard. You can even put it on a ocean-rig.