Andrew as you will be becoming aware now, I am not for nuclear. I became opposed to it when I witnessed time and time again, nuclear power stations of all descriptions abandoned in unsafe states, when I worked in the electrical utilities power industry, a number of years ago.
A few years later, working in a different capacity I was shocked to see a "Graveyard dock", full of rusting ex-service nuclear vessels in a certain dockyard in UK. At some time in the future there will be a disaster when one or more of those vessels rusts to a state where it begins to pollute the environment. But no budget appears to fix that problem, no-one knows what to do with them, they will stay there until the worst happens.
I am sure that is not the only such site in UK, many more must exist in all nuclear countries of the world.
The truth is there are a few who do very well from senior involvement in land based nuclear power stations, but they bail out / retire before the expense of making them safe at end of life is committed, and so the stations are never made safe, despite any agreements made at planning / investment stage, thirty years is a long time to keep any promises, with lots of changes of governments, laws, staff, and economics in the way.
I don't know a single nuclear installation we could say really has been made safe, at end of life.
Maybe you can enlighten there.
That thirty years is the working life of an average station. It happens to coincide perfectly with the desirable working life of a person, who might want to retire in their fifties, preferably with a sizeable golden handshake or pension.
To me it is obvious this is the actual ambition of most people involved in them.
You might be an exception, if you think that you can somehow do it differently, otherwise I would say to you that you should examine your own motives very carefully, to know what drives you.
If you really want to contribute to sorting the environment, you have to put aside all ambitions of working in big industry, it seems to me, as that is one of the primary drivers that keep us hooked into fossil fuels extraction.
Otherwise, I would say to you, you are on the side of what I call "Bullshit Industry", which has to end now, as it is the real culprit of all pollution, which is the real underlying reason we now have energy wars, which can't continue, as we have reached the end of the capability of the "Grand Energy Ponzi" which humanity has played for all time prior to solar power.
Another relevant post for you to read, if you are interested in my take of things:
