3 ms·
Nuclear has only ever gotten more expensive, never cheaper. SMRs seem interesting, but at this point they're more science fiction than reality.
by HDThoreaun 4y ago
Nuclear has only ever gotten more expensive, never cheaper. SMRs seem interesting, but at this point they're more science fiction than reality.
- epistasis 4y agoI did see a more recent and very comprehensive paper that found a few countries where costs haven't ballooned, or even fallen by very tiny amounts. Whether those situations can be replicated is unclear. But even if we get to the best case scenario of small cost drops, nuclear will never compete with the tech cruces of storage and solar. It does not have the characteristics of a tech with falling costs, without a complete revolution in its operation, the likes of which I have not seen imagined by anyone. Thorium and SMRs are minor tweaks that who not reach the type of tech revolution needed to make nuclear into a tech with falling costs. There might be a few niche locations for which nuclear is the cheapest option, such as maybe Finland who was able to finally get their new single reactor online, a year delayed from the first time they declared it online. But these are the exceptions. Unclear is it a general purpose technology, it should be viewed as useful only in special circumstances where traditional tech fails.