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The US can build a plant in 13 years. It's a matter of dedication and willingness. And pissing off a minority of vocal opponents. It takes longer because of

The US can build a plant in 13 years. It's a matter of dedication and willingness. And pissing off a minority of vocal opponents. It takes longer because of the crazy regulations driven in part by environmentalists who complained about nuclear for decades while fossil fuels were the only other option. But the USA has the resources, skills, technology and money to do so in a short period of time.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
The USA hasn't built a sizable number of reactors for 40 years. We haven't completely lost the skills, but they've sure atrophied. It takes China 10 years to build a reactor, and they've built lots of them in the past 20 years and don't have the regulations you decry. There's no way that the US can do it in anywhere close to the same time frame that China can. It's not just the rules and attitudes about nuclear making things slow. We can't build a subway station in any sort of reasonable timeframe or budget.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Aren't NuScale, Rolls Royce, etc planning to deploy several Gigawatts per year of mini reactors within 5 years? That could be close to 1% of energy usage per year...
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    They should build it then, and be willing to suffer financial penalties if they can’t. Otherwise they’re making empty promises. Watch what someone does, not what they say.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  I believe there are some. If you want to build new reactor designs, it is almost impossible because of the approval you have to get for the design. If I recall, Terrapower was pretty much told they had to prove the tech somewhere else before building here. They planned to build a reactor in China but that was halted because of the trade war? If you are building a reactor with older designs most people say we shouldn't build with, yea there isn't as much push back.
epistasis 4y ago
None of this is correct, the projects have not been stopped due to environmentalists, or regulations, or even willingness. It's just been construction incompetence that caused billions of dollars to be abandoned on a half-finished project at VC Summer. And it's the same construction incompetence that caused Vogtle to be so far behind schedule and so far over budget. If somebody has regulations to change, it's time to propose them.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
US can build reactors in 13 years in the same fictional scenario where Russian government can be competent and can substitute all the foreign components it needs, especially electronics, with home grown ones. Back in the real world, US is taking decades to build a railway and Russia's import substitution programm is 90% fraud - they buy from Czech Republic kits for assembly of Tractors, out them together in Russia and call them 'russian-built'. You cannot just hand-wave away political issues, incompetence and corruption.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

The USA hasn't built a sizable number of reactors for 40 years. We haven't completely lost the skills, but they've sure atrophied. It takes China 10 years to build a reactor, and they've built lots of them in the past 20 years and don't have the regulations you decry. There's no way that the US can do it in anywhere close to the same time frame that China can. It's not just the rules and attitudes about nuclear making things slow. We can't build a subway station in any sort of reasonable timeframe or budget.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Aren't NuScale, Rolls Royce, etc planning to deploy several Gigawatts per year of mini reactors within 5 years? That could be close to 1% of energy usage per year...
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  They should build it then, and be willing to suffer financial penalties if they can’t. Otherwise they’re making empty promises. Watch what someone does, not what they say.
tcmart14 4y ago
I believe there are some. If you want to build new reactor designs, it is almost impossible because of the approval you have to get for the design. If I recall, Terrapower was pretty much told they had to prove the tech somewhere else before building here. They planned to build a reactor in China but that was halted because of the trade war? If you are building a reactor with older designs most people say we shouldn't build with, yea there isn't as much push back.

epistasis 4y ago

None of this is correct, the projects have not been stopped due to environmentalists, or regulations, or even willingness. It's just been construction incompetence that caused billions of dollars to be abandoned on a half-finished project at VC Summer. And it's the same construction incompetence that caused Vogtle to be so far behind schedule and so far over budget. If somebody has regulations to change, it's time to propose them.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

US can build reactors in 13 years in the same fictional scenario where Russian government can be competent and can substitute all the foreign components it needs, especially electronics, with home grown ones. Back in the real world, US is taking decades to build a railway and Russia's import substitution programm is 90% fraud - they buy from Czech Republic kits for assembly of Tractors, out them together in Russia and call them 'russian-built'. You cannot just hand-wave away political issues, incompetence and corruption.