Because they stopped selling products and started selling ideas. It's easier to get people bought into an idea than it is a product that may or may not be finished.
The next step in the pitch is: we can shut it down, but doing so will involve large capital costs and stranded costs that we did not anticipate. Make us whole for those costs and we will shut it down. They have been watching how the electric utilities have handled the political winds slamming back and forth: coal yes, coal no, coal yes.
because they need regulatory capture in the face of token vendor commoditization and the best way to get American capitulation is through fear of the unknown and not understood
Hope? Hope doesn't need a bunker.