3 ms·
How do the French do it?
by perl4ever 5y ago
How do the French do it?
- jabl 5y agoThe French have 100 varieties of cheese, and 3 varieties of nuclear power plants. In the USA it's the opposite. More seriously, the French nuclear buildout (the Messmer plan), was a state driven program doing series building of large nuclear power plants. That is the recipe for quickly building out capacity on time and on budget. (The delays and cost overruns seen today with the EPR's are largely due to there being such a long pause in building these that much of the knowhow was lost.)
- dredmorbius 5y agoSo ... the free market approach doesn't work, government intervention, leadership, and subsidy is necessary?
- AniseAbyss 5y agoWell contrary to what Republicans believe all the great things America has done have been funded by the Federal government.
- dredmorbius 5y agoNot all. But many, yes. (A few of the not-so-great things as well.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 5y agoWell, if the "free market" wants to create unique, hand-crafted nuclear power plants, with generally inexperienced workers... While the government's alternative is something between a production line and cookie-cutter tract houses, with experienced workers... Then duh. Not hard to figure out which one has an overwhelming advantage.
- dredmorbius 5y agoSomewhat my point, yes.
- StrictDabbler 5y agoThe Canadians do it with CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium) reactors. They are extremely (almost inherently) safe. They run on natural, unenriched uranium or any mix of uranium, plutonium and thorium that you have to hand. Nuclear power is, in a sense, a solved problem. You can just make dozens of CANDUs. There are a few dozen political issues with procurement and weaponization that made the safe, boring CANDU reactor a non-option for American politics. It's a shame.
- perl4ever 5y agoIf you can overcome "political issues with weaponization", then can't you burn the waste in a breeder reactor and be way more efficient? My impression is that it adds many orders of magnitude to how long the available uranium will last.