I am rather partly back, but I will try to blog about particle physics again soon :)

IMO, the reasons for using nuclear energy is not only financial (usually, the same companies, at least in France, own several types of plants). It is a choice between polluting in one way or the other (and there is no good choice... at least for now).

There is in fact no need to looking for excuse. All available technologies of today have pros and cons and decisions have to be made. To me, the error is that not enough money is put in research for future, cleaner and more efficient, options.

Just to comment to the last part of your message, I am a bit rusted in how this technology works as my student days in nuclear engineering are far far behind me, so that I am maybe not 100% aware of the new developments and I forgot many things. I have actually never even started with working in this field as I switched gears to particle physics research right after my studies.

Cheers!

PS: I had a few days of offline break between Xmas and new year. This was good!