3 ms·
Say what you will, but I don't think you'll ever get economies of scale in nuclear like you will with solar (or even wind). You can certainly get some economie
by horsawlarway 4y ago
Say what you will, but I don't think you'll ever get economies of scale in nuclear like you will with solar (or even wind). You can certainly get some economies of scale, but those cost benefits are almost always a function of number of units produced.
Nuclear just doesn't need that many units produced - so it will never get the same functional benefit.
Unless you're planning on going down to Asimov-esque wearable reactors (and I don't realistically think you are) nuclear just doesn't make enough units to really get the same benefits from scale.
Solar on the other hand... each unit is producing 100watts of power, and you're making a literal shit load of units. Production numbers are very high, and it benefits enormously from economies of scale.
Basically - even the smallest reactor designs we're talking about for nuclear are in the 20mw range/unit.
Solar is 100-300w/unit. (watts - not megawatts). We're making nearly 70 THOUSAND units of solar for every unit of nuclear, at nuclear's smallest size.
- skrbjc 4y agoThe economies of scale for nuclear require far fewer units to have a benefit compared to something like solar panels. Because you aren't building 100s of 1000s of them like you need with solar panels. Just building two identical plants at the same time creates a huge cost savings.