5 ms·

The best time to build a nuclear reactor is 20 years ago. The second best is today.

• dividedbyzero 4y ago
  Perhaps the best time to build one is 20 years from now with the hope that by then someone else has sorted out how to do it without exceeding an already enormous budget by a factor of four as with Olkiluoto (so far, it's still in trials that it failed on the first attempt). Plus, to get out of gas you'd need tons of storage anyway as current nuclear reactors aren't very reactive, that's what gas plants do. But if you do invest in storage and make that work well, might just overbuild renewables and limit nuclear reactors to specific niches.
  • ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    > how to do it without exceeding an already enormous budget by a factor of four as with Olkiluoto How about imprisoning the responsible for the exceeded budget? How does Microsoft/Walmart deal with someone promising a thing will cost X but then costs 4X?
    • Gwypaas 4y ago
      They shut the project down before the sunk cost fallacy grow too large.
    • ncmncm 4y ago
      With nukes, the cost and schedule overruns are the whole point. It would not be approved at all without prospect of those, as payoffs for gatekeepers. That is why SMR will not find traction.
  • nathanaldensr 4y ago
    I find it amusing how the phrase "overbuild renewables" is thrown about several times in this thread as if it's a good thing. It's not. You must acknowledge that the materials and supply chain required for the wind/solar hypothetical simply don't exist.