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Amazon, Meta, Google sign pledge to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- PaulHoule 2y agoIt's easy to talk about, not so easy to do. Two problems stalk nuclear power right now: (1) the economics of the LWR, if we could build one on schedule, are not attractive compared to natural gas, and may or may not be competitive with solar/wind + storage and (2) we can't build one on schedule. The answer to (1) is a long research project to develop something that operates at a higher temperature to reduce the cost of the steam turbine and associated heat exchangers but in turn requires risky innovations in many areas. The answer to (2) is to "stay the course" building the same reactor type over and over again with only minor changes, something Russia has been doing and that China is also doing after trying a large number of designs and settling in on this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One which is a refinement of the reactors that France was building back when France built many reactors successfully. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One