alt Hacker NewsA major reason nuclear plants are super expensive is because we do it so rarely
Every reactor and every plant is bespoke, even if they are based on a common "design" each instance is different enough that every project has to be managed from the ground up as a new thing, you get certified only on a single plant, operators can't move from plant to plant without recertification, etc
Part of that is because they are so big and massive, and take a long time to build. If we'd build smaller, modular reactors that are literally exactly the same every single time you would begin to get economies of scale, you'd be able to get by without having to build a complete replica for training every time, and by being smaller you'd get to value delivery much quicker reducing the finance costs, which would then let you plow the profits from Reactor A into Reactor B's construction
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Exactly. What is needed is a SpaceX-like enterprise, where the engineering effort is concentrated in building economies of scale. To me it's clear that nuclear energy's pros largely outweigh the cons, and that it is a perfect complement to solar and wind power generation.
It isn't that rare in general - if the U.S. opens the secrets of nuclear submarines - we had had mini reactors for decades.
There are some companies that are trying to get SMRs up and running.
https://www.ans.org/news/2025-02-05/article-6744/new-swedish...
We’ll see how it goes.
We’ve been trying to build ”SMR”s since the 1950s and a bunch has been built throughout the decades.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-forgotten-history-of-small...
The problem is: who pays for the hundreds of prototypes before the ”process” has worked?
> If we'd build smaller, modular reactors that are literally exactly the same every single time you would begin to get economies of scale
You can also build standardized, modular LARGE nuclear power reactors. The French and the Japanese did it and managed to builds lots of large reactors with relatively short build times
> A major reason nuclear plants are super expensive is because we do it so rarely
Once you have your supply chain running, and PM/labour experience, things can run fairly quickly. In the 1980s and '90s Japan was starting a new nuclear plant every 1-2 years, and finishing them in 5:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
France built 40 in a decade:
* https://worksinprogress.co/issue/liberte-egalite-radioactivi...
More recently, Vogtle Unit 3 was expensive AF, but Unit 4 cost 30% less (though still not cheap).