Think of the term "Economies of Scale." In one sense, it means building a larger steel mill, oil refinery, aluminum smelter, etc. to lower production costs.

Think of the term "Economies of Scale." In one sense, it means building a larger steel mill, oil refinery, aluminum smelter, etc. to lower production costs. Applied to nuclear reactors, you get large, one-of-a-kind designs, that have to go through a long approval process, complicated construction, with major financial risk, defeating any economies of scale they had (primarily higher temperatures leading to higher energy efficiency.) Another way to look at economies of scale is to produce a lot of identical widgets, in this case modular reactors that can be manufactured in one factory and shipped on trucks to the site ready to be installed, with streamlined permitting and approval based on a proven track record with identical units. One additional benefit is you can do the site permitting "on spec" submitting for multiple locations and then you have 10-20 years to decide where you want to build, only investing the money if it turns out the market is there.