Regulations are just one of many different aspects of the cost and complexity of nuclear. To understand what's involved here, look at the parent company that is building and running the nuclear plant. You will probably find an archaic, bloated, inefficient, yet profitable company, that has enormous market advantage and basically no incentive to reduce cost, complexity, or time, but does have incentive to cut costs and hide risks in order to maximize the share price.
The article talks about complexity, about delays. But it doesn't talk about how insanely inefficient the design, construction, etc is. How a lot of that complexity and waste could be eliminated if somebody in leadership actually gave a shit. But they know you're going to pay for it anyway, and they're going to get their bonus, and they certainly aren't motivated by lowering the cost to the consumer.
It's the typical capitalist story: become big enough that you have virtually no competition, so you can charge what you want, and nobody has any choice but to put up with your shit.
Renewables are not enough to replace coal and gas, so you just need nuclear. Even if the big energy conglomerates didn't get the construction contract (which would be crazy), they'd get you on distribution instead of generation. Or they'll get hand-outs from the government if they start to fail, because they're too big. One way or another they'll get your money.
The article talks about complexity, about delays. But it doesn't talk about how insanely inefficient the design, construction, etc is. How a lot of that complexity and waste could be eliminated if somebody in leadership actually gave a shit. But they know you're going to pay for it anyway, and they're going to get their bonus, and they certainly aren't motivated by lowering the cost to the consumer.
It's the typical capitalist story: become big enough that you have virtually no competition, so you can charge what you want, and nobody has any choice but to put up with your shit.