> 1) make the thermal generation part super cheap Even with Gen3 if you effectively construct and build it can be quite a bit cheaper. As places like South Kor

> 1) make the thermal generation part super cheap Even with Gen3 if you effectively construct and build it can be quite a bit cheaper. As places like South Korea show at the moment. However when you go to advanced nuclear, you gain massive benefits because the scale is just so much smaller. That means the core itself, but even more importantly, the technology around the core, such as turbines, can be moved outside of the nuclear island. Meaning far less civil engineering and that the turbine island can be identical to those build for gas or CSP. We know that the construction and financing of that construction is the main point of cost today. The second gain in cost also comes from scale, but of the reactor core itself. A nuclear reactor is not far more complex or bigger as many other things we mass produce already, planes, cars, rocket engines and so on. Mass production can bring down the cost of individual reactor cores as it did for everything else. > 2) make the thermal to electric conversion cheaper Using the same technology as a Gas power station, Combined-Cycle Gas Turbine. You can do that with advanced nuclear because of high operating temperatures. Beating gas in the US where it is absurdly cheap will probably not be possible if CO2 is not prized. But it can beat coal and everything else in most places of the world. If you want to really want to go to zero carbon by 2050, we need to mass produce nuclear reactors like we do planes. You don't need massive changes to the grid. No need for massive expansion in cross regional grids. You don't need highly complex extra regional power management schemes. You don't need an incredibly complex system interaction between highly intermittent energy sources and peckers working together. These reactors can be built close to where the users actually and more importantly you can build them where currently coal and gas power plants are located. Meaning you can reuse existing infrastructure far more effectively then trying to replace these coal plants with wind and solar resources. Not to mention that nuclear is far more long lived, all these solar and wind farms have to be completely replaced twice or three times over while nuclear plants can live for 60-100 years.