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The thing we really need is to just keep building plants. The problem nuclear power has faced is that since no industry which commonly exercises itself exists,
by XorNot 3y ago
The thing we really need is to just keep building plants. The problem nuclear power has faced is that since no industry which commonly exercises itself exists, the engineering experience and knowledge about how to run power plant construction projects hasn't matured - hence the cost overruns and delays.
Like the thing to do after the expense of the Vogtle project is to take the learned lessons there, and start working work on the next reactor (there were some really stupid things on that project too - i.e. commencing construction without finishing design work on the major components, which led to a lot of unnecessary rework).
- matthewdgreen 3y agoThere isn’t time for a “just keep working on the next reactor.” We have to decarbonize the entire economy in a ridiculously short time, and that means either (1) focusing on technologies that already have an exponential adoption/price curve, or (2) making decisive and massive investments in nuclear to get the technology onto such a curve. Anything else is going to be mostly irrelevant.
- hedora 3y agoWe need to do both, and also capture CO2 at an unprecedented scale. We’re going to need a ridiculous amount of electricity to fix the atmosphere.