This is just early adopter problems, prices will come down as SMRs become mass produced. The high cost reflects the actual cost of decarbonizing, which is much higher than most people give credit. You can't just buy your way to success with climate change, and all the cost overruns are what it actually takes to manufacture something new. The same goes for any other important capital project, like a railroad or a canal. These things aren't cheap, and people shouldn't pretend like the price they are offered is the actual price they'll pay. In return, this avoids all of the problems inherent with large PV and battery farms when they reach their end-of-life, a problem all nuclear reactors are uniquely required to account for that other power modes don't.

This also happens in the same state that used to house America's largest coal power plant, and is adjacent America's largest oil producing state. These people aren't hippies in the first place, and they aren't fiscal conservatives either.