> After nearly 70 years, I think we need to take a hard look at what nuclear actually is. And it's a fantastically complex, wondrously large, construction proje

> After nearly 70 years, I think we need to take a hard look at what nuclear actually is. And it's a fantastically complex, wondrously large, construction project, that has to last a long long time without big repairs. Why "withougt big repairs"? The province of Ontario is in the middle of refurbishing their CANDU reactors (with the project currently on-budget and ahead of schedule). This will make them useable for another few decades. Depending on the design, there's no reason why (at least in some cases) components can't be replaced regularly to keep things going (Ship of Theseus-like): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoU3U7TYNLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoU3U7TYNLA > But current attempts are skating to where the puck was 5-10 years ago, and they won't finish until the puck has spent 10-15 years more of shifting towards ever cheaper solar, wind, and batteries. Japan was finishing (A)BWR nuclear plants in 4-5 years: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... The reason why things take so long in the US is: * things start and stop (versus just deciding on a course of action of going for it) * having so many 'one-off' designs, so experience cannot be transferred between plants (settled on one design, like France and Canada did; maybe two) * ordering one unit at a time (maybe two), so economies of scale cannot be started (build in pairs, with a goal of having 4/6/8 reactors in one location)