4 ms·

How is a reactor at partial power less efficient? I suspect you're not talking about thermodynamic efficiency, and it's not energy that (you think) would be wa

• jabl 7y ago
  > How is a reactor at partial power less efficient? I suspect you're not talking about thermodynamic efficiency, and it's not energy that (you think) would be wasted. Efficient in an economic sense. Nuclear plants are generally capital intensive, whereas fuel is very cheap. So you want to run them at close to max power as much as possible to recoup capital costs. But contrary to the previous poster, I think trans-oceanic ships generally do that.