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Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report (newatlas.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

142 comments fedilink hide all child comments

[T]he report's executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

"The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs," says the report. "But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb."

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

all large projects have this level of corruption and grift

Skill issue. I can't even blame capitalism, since the french manage to get almost 90% of their power from nuclear.

China has 53 GW installed, 25 GW under construction, and another 47 GW planned. Generally they're pretty clear-eyed when it comes to major projects like this, so I think we can infer the availability of cheap hydro and solar doesn't favor doing more than ~15% nuclear since they're only planning to increase it by 150% over the next couple decades.

Maybe that will change when they set up long term storage/reprocessing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

IIRC the French reactors are all nearing their end of service life and'll be decommissioned soon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Surely you made a typo? 50 MW is a tenth of the electrical yield of the smallest PWR you can profitably operate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Off by a factor of 1000. That's why I'm not a nuclear engineer.