It's more or less what France did, going with standardized conventional tech. I would like more information on exactly how they convinced their country to go that route. This article fills in some of the blanks.

Waste management and processing should be done at centralized locations, preferably old military bases out in the desert somewhere. They keep H-bombs on such bases, so I suspect the security is good enough. Waste storage should be on the same facility as the reprocessing reactors, so there is reduced transportation.

Making a reactor proof against terror attack would not be difficult, even by airplanes.

Just as only a Republican could open up China, only a Democrat could pull this off. Republicans are certainly able to do the job, but they would never have the credibility to pull the environmentalist fringe on board. A Democrat would immediately take the wind out of the sails of the knee-jerk liberals, and give them a sense of participation. You know they'll go nuke if a Democrat tells them it's OK.

I suspect Al Gore would plunge needles into his eyeballs before he'd sell nuclear power. Carter could have pulled it off back in the 1970s, but he killed the industry instead.

Hillary might. She has a wide pragmatic streak. But I don't think she's going to win.

The environmentalist fringe cannot be brought on board. That's why they are called the "fringe." It's a religious fight for them. If you can get the general public and Congress on board--no piece of cake all by itself--then the fringe can just be worked around.