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Fission is too expensive because everyone tried to get economies of scale at big complex custom-built one-off plants. Those who see hope for fission look to get
by fennecfoxen 6y ago
Fission is too expensive because everyone tried to get economies of scale at big complex custom-built one-off plants. Those who see hope for fission look to get economies of scale with a modular approach, mass-producing simple, small, reactors, shipping them from the factory to the site on trucks, and attaching them to the grid.
I am not qualified to assess whether that hope is well-founded, but there are real differences in the approach.
- marcosdumay 6y agoBig nuclear reactors are cheaper on the $/MW metric than small ones. Big steam power plants are also cheaper on the $/MW than small ones. It's not that clear how much economy of scale is there with a modular design and if it's enough to displace the diseconomy of making smaller plants. But the one thing that gets cheaper with a small size is safety mechanisms, and those are a big thing.