[ip26]

Recent studies found that re-using a design made nukes cost more & take longer to build. Reason being each site is different, and so the design always needs to be tweaked, and at this scale changes are more expensive than from-scratch.

SMR's made in a factory seem like the only way to address that, but I have no idea if we can ramp SMR's to national viability in the next ten years.

[m4rtink]

The very successful reuse of a few fixed designs on many sites in France seems to quite heavily counter this statement.

[ip26]

A good point of reference, but that was also 20-40 years ago.

[bpodgursky]

In a healthy civilization, as technology improves, things get easier over time, not harder.

The only reason it would have worked in France 40 years ago but not today is institutional malaise and bureaucratic capture.

[laverya]

"Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop" [0] apparently does a good job of explaining exactly how our civilization has regressed in this sense over the past 50ish years. In short, it's the principle of "As Low (risk) As Reasonably Achievable". Well, they minimized nuclear risk, but sure as hell didn't minimize global warming risk in the process.

Roots of Progress has an interesting review here [0], which is what I base that on. (It's on my list to read, just haven't gotten to it yet)

0: https://gordianknotbook.com/

1: https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop