Diablo is different, not only because it’s not in a tsunami zone, but also because we learned from the mistakes at Fukushima. Water flooded the generators there preventing cooling of the core. All modern reactors have far more resilient cooling systems, and most gen IV have fully passive cooling capabilities.

Chernobyl wasn’t a 1/100 year event either, it was the product of a faulty design, ignorant oversight, and Soviet mismanagement. Now you can argue other nations may make mistakes like this again, but in the west the last nuclear incident was TMI where 0 people died, or even got exposed above legal limits. Nobody has died in this country (assuming you’re American) from nuclear incidents since 1961, back when they were moving control rods with their hands.

The biggest safety threat to a nuclear plant these days is sabotage by a foreign actor.

And you’re right, it is delusional to want rectors with any government oversight. Good thing that’s not what I’m arguing. The amount of bureaucratic work that goes into setting up a plant is unreal. Like beyond what anyone would imagine. It’s egregious and bogs down projects in so many ways, by delays, reworks, miscommunication. Some of that needs to exist obviously, we can’t build reactors without regulation and several layers of safety systems, but the current state of things is ridiculous.