Mines aren't run with pickaxes and donkeys anymore. Take some time to educate yourself.

Why would you assume untrained personnel? These would still be regulated by the DoE.

What about security? In the UK nuclear installations are under 24/7 armed guard from a special police force. That would be expensive to maintain in a remote region, although I guess they already have security at diamond mines, or instance

Reasonable Assumption: The "remote communities", "mining sites", etc. which both qualify for a nuclear power plant, and can afford it, will be fairly select & high-budget places.

Vastness of rural US is a security factor on its own. Plenty of military installations in the desert aren't even fenced.

They’re perhaps not fenced but presumably they’re full of armed military personnel?

You've never really been out in the American West, have you?

Just one example - the Nevada Test and Training Range alone is a bit over 4,500 square miles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_and_Training_Ran...

Vs. Wikipedia says the entire U.S. Army (active duty) has ~485,000 personnel.

Divide...and that's ~0.17 Army people per acre, even if the US Army had NO job except holding down the NTTR. (Which is actually US Air Force, BTW.)

[Edit: But +1 - because in the bigger picture you make a valid point. However vast the open spaces, at the spots where the cool & expensive stuff sits, there does have to be some sort of "real" security. If only so dodgy locals don't swing by with a pair of bolt cutters, and start helping themselves.]

Thanks for the perspective, you are indeed right that I’ve never been “out there”.

There was a German family once that might have paid with their lives for that presumption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans

I guess that comparing it to the cost of setting up a super long power line and maintaining it (sabotages, fires, whatever), maybe it's interesting.

I would be more concerned about security than trained personnel to run it. Obviously, there will be trained people on site. You don't put a small reactor onsite and tell Cletus and Bubba to press this button to start it and that button to stop it.