The 1.6 gigawatt Olkiluoto 3 EPR has cost 5.5 billion and the building has taken 14 years so far (it's not ready yet). And this is happening in a high functioni

The 1.6 gigawatt Olkiluoto 3 EPR has cost 5.5 billion and the building has taken 14 years so far (it's not ready yet). And this is happening in a high functioning low corruption country. The lightbulb wasn't the real invention - it was the lightbulb making machine that had the real impact on the world. The same way, we need a way to safely, quickly and cheaply build and operate nuclear power plants. The way might be small modular reactors, something like 200 megawatt sized. They can be built in well controlled circumstances in a factory. Installation on site should be fast. Currently, a nuclear power plant construction requires lots of welding and concrete casting. In these projects it is slow and expensive because of extra safety needs and regulations. On site construction should be minimized instead. One could run multiple smaller reactors in one site so safety areas would not be greatly increased. Emergency and maintenance shutdowns would have smaller impact on the grid than currently with multiple gigawatt sizes. With smaller reactors, innovation and experimentation should also be a lot faster. If you build one reactor every 20 years, you don't get a lot of incremental innovation.