> Given the extensive security requirements for nuclear I can see a need for security, but I think power plants in general must be quite secure, otherwise a te

> Given the extensive security requirements for nuclear I can see a need for security, but I think power plants in general must be quite secure, otherwise a terrorist can waltz in, put a stick of dynamite under a boiler and boom, one gigawatt of electricity goes offline. > the cost of this reactor itself Westinghouse is quite tight-lipped about this reactor design. If you go to the NRC site with their application, most stuff is withheld from the public view [1]. However, they seem to have addressed the 2 big cost drivers of nuclear reactors. Their reactor does not need a high pressure vessel, and it has passive cooling, so that it can't melt down. The second part is kind of trivial. The square-cube law says that smaller reactors are more efficient at passive cooling, the smaller the better. That's one of the reasons the US Navy never had an accident with one of its hundreds of naval reactors. The no need for the high pressure vessel is quite unique. The cooling is done with liquid sodium, not with water. Water at high temperature needs to be kept under huge pressures to not boil, but liquid sodium does not have that problem. I think Westinghouse envisions that they will, at some point, be able to manufacture these reactors on an assembly line, and maybe build several per day. If they get to that point, then maybe a reactor will be more expensive than a diesel generator, but it will not need to be refueled for eight years. A diesel generator burns about 0.4 liters per kWh, so a 5 MW generator would burn about 500 gallons liters per hour, or in dollars, it would be about $1500/hour. Over 8 years, that is about $100 million. If Westinghouse can get to the point of making one reactor for $20 million, they will have a huge market. [1] https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-working-with/licensing-activities/pre-application-activities/evinci.html https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-...