3 ms·

So you're saying that instead of learning from a single project we made the same mistakes four times at once?

• epistasis 3y ago
  We learned that the economics were so poor that all future projects stopped their plans. There were supposed to be advantages to building four at once, in that there would be some economy of scale. The AP1000 were also supppsed to be somewhat "modular" to avoid on site custom builds. None of this worked out as planned. If we wanted nuclear to be a part of the energy transition, we didn't need two new reactors every decade or even four, we needed something like 5-20 per year. However, the experience of building the AP1000 has soured the market. If we are going to build more nuclear, now is the time because we have the most knowledable workforce right now, but the benefit of building nuclear looks so small in comparison to the cost and the risks that it seems unlikely. Major major support from the government is needed (and it's there from DoE's Loan Programs Office, run by a huge nuclear fan), but you also need utilities who want to place orders. And that second part is hard to create.