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Actually, one more significant problem with nuclear power is that there isn't enough manufacturing capability to build reactor cores. Most existing reactors are
by henrikschroder 7y ago
Actually, one more significant problem with nuclear power is that there isn't enough manufacturing capability to build reactor cores. Most existing reactors are decades old, and although we have a lot of theoretical knowledge on how to build reactors, how to build more modern reactors than the existing ones, we globally lack the practical know-how, there's no assembly line that we can just pick up reactors from. So the cost of a new reactors is almost unknown. How much does it cost to build the factory that builds the reactors?
Handling nuclear waste is much easier, because we're actively working on that problem, there's practical know-how in spades.
- wongarsu 7y ago"Modern" reactor designs would indeed solve many problems with nuclear energy. But nuclear reactors are for the most part extremely expensive projects with high risks, so only conservative designs that are well tested are actually being built. This has been a problem for the last four decades, and I don't see why it would suddenly change. If anything risk appetite probably decreases as civilian nuclear reactors stop making financial sense.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoI believe that China has the appetite for it and will pursue new reactor types unlike the luddites that we have here in the USA. Luckily they will probably sell them to us for a profit.
- redisman 7y agoLuddites or not, I fully expect this pattern to repeat in every country that has any kind of an accident/disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#/media/File:Japan_net_electricity_generation_in_2000_through_2017_(48061019128).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#/media/...