I know many folks here are not overly fond of France... But we're insanely hilariously backwards compared to their nuclear program.
France has 58 working nuclear plants, generating 75% of its national power grid. I say again, 75%. Three quarters. We're at 20%. A third of our power is coal fired, which releases a LOT more hard radiation than nuclear power. Gewehr could probably tell you which stuck out more on airborne radiation detection platforms.
They reprocess spent reactor fuel. We really don't. We take perfectly usable fuel, and treat it like waste. That's essentially like using maybe 5-10% of the fuel in your car's gas tank, putting the remainder of the gas in a tank outside your house and refilling your car. Then complaining that tank is dangerous.
They stuck to one design. Driving down cost, easing safety compliance, reducing part availability issues.
France actually educates its citizenry on nuclear power. Our education doesn't, and unfortunately even propagandizes against it.
They didn't bury their waste. They "stockpiled it". Above ground. More expensive, but people right or wrongly didn't psychologically want nuclear waste buried under their towns. If it's in the psychological equivalent of a well guarded warehouse, it doesn't freak people out as much. More expensive, less secure, but people don't worry nearly as much. Worth the cost. Meuse/Haute Marne Underground Research Laboratory will essentially be an underground storage facility, but it sounds better than "nuclear waste dump".
Normally, I roll my eyes at people who think Europe is better than the US in every regard. Even in this case, most of Europe is backwards, provincial and uneducated. France however puts us to shame.
We should emulate them. A minimum of 75% of our power from fissionables, reprocess waste, take care of the PR aspects of leftover fuel storage (NOT 'nuclear waste', leftover fuel for future use), unified designs in as few combinations as plausible, rolling construction/decomissioning and educating the citizenry.