> A pressure vessel's cost largely scales with surface area but its power capacity scales with volume That is if you ignore experience curve effects. In the U

> A pressure vessel's cost largely scales with surface area but its power capacity scales with volume That is if you ignore experience curve effects. In the US only one nuclear power plant came online in the last 25 years. For plants like Vogtle, the majority of the workers on site have never built another nuclear plant in their career before, and will never build after. That is a very good way to keep construction cost astronomical. Compare with the reactors for nuclear submarines. They are being built at a rate of about 1 per year. Most workers have participated in building numerous reactors in the past, all of the same design. New workers can learn from experienced peers, and use their learning in building lots more reactors during the rest of their career. In the last 25 years, the US brought online only one civilian nuclear power plant, but 23 nuclear submarines and 4 aircraft carriers (those have 2 reactors each). The cost of naval reactors is classified, but I’ve seen non-classified information that indicates that a submarine reactor costs in the lew hundreds of millions, and a carrier reactor about one billion ([1] page 10). The idea of SMR’s is to replicate the success story of naval reactors in the civilian sphere. [1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/112th-congress-2011-2012/reports/05-12-nuclearpropulsion.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/112th-congress-2011-...