Oh sure, I understood the effort to make it easier to "plop down" bunch large plants at once, not hundreds of small ones - though those are kind of interesting

Oh sure, I understood the effort to make it easier to "plop down" bunch large plants at once, not hundreds of small ones - though those are kind of interesting in isolated locations. The other thing is old Soviet idea of using small nuclear reactors for heating - put small reactor to every town and run central heating to the housing estates, meaning you get to use close to 100 % of the heat output of the reactor, instead of the ~ 30 % the turbines give you in electricity. Of course, if things go wrong, you have very efficient radioactivity delivery mechanism to every home. And outside of very cold climates it might be actually less efficient than a modern heat pump, even accounting for the heat conversion.