[epistasis]

> Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that.

When did Japan last build a nuclear reactor? I don't think any time recently.

South Korea used to be touted as a success at construction without massive overruns, but it turns out that it was largely a result or corruption and skimping on safety inspections:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/s-korea-jails-nuclear-work...

As for China and Russia, we don't really have much insight to what they are doing as far as safety. China is seems to be successful at large scale construction projects in a way that we can not replicate in the west, so perhaps their numbers are reasonable for construction costs.

> If nuclear energy should be considered, much more must be built more continuously.

We would need entirely new designs unlike what has been built in the past. Both France and the US have negative learning rates when building the same reactor design multiple times, and that was 50 years ago when construction was a much more effective part of our economies.

I do not believe that nuclear is a smart energy source to pursue given our modern production capabilities. There's a bevy of nuclear startups trying smaller reactors that might be able to constrain construction costs. But in the past these designs have been rejected because of the loss of economy of scale, as being too expensive per watt.

Of the potential carbon neutral energy sources of the future, nuclear is one of the e least practical. It may supply a tiny fraction of our future power, maybe 10%, but without a major revolution soon on construction, our aging reactors will be shut down at end of life without any way to build more of them.

[cipher_system]

Last one was connected in 2009 which isn't that recent but there are also not that many projects of this size. China and Russia might not be the most thrustworthy and I would rather see more more western examples but then we have to go back a couple of decades, most of which were excellent.

I agree that a gigantic shift is required and put my hopes into mass produced SMRs. It's gonna take time and money, yes, just like the shift to EVs and renewables.

Fossil fuels is still above 80% of global primary energy, nuclear 5% and renewables excluding hydro 2%.

I really don't think putting all eggs in the solar/wind basket is good. They should of course also get heavy investments but that doesn't have to exclude nuclear. We're gonna need everything we have to end the fossil era.

[pfdietz]

> most of which were excellent.

Even in the first nuclear build out in the US, large cost overruns were very common. Forbes magazine was famously critical of this in a 1985 cover article.

There's a reason the US stopped building NPPs back then and it wasn't green mind control.

[jotm]

> China is seems to be successful at large scale construction projects in a way that we can not replicate in the west

Are they? Considering that their population is higher than the whole of North America + EU + Russia combined, wouldn't it be fair to compare it that way? Sure, it's one country as opposed to several, but still, the population plays a huge role in this "amazing construction at scale".

[bllguo]

can you flesh this out, why exactly does a larger population mean more efficient construction projects? i don't follow

seems to me other factors like economics and government structure are more important, don't think a 4x larger US would be building faster and more cheaply

[jotm]

I guess what I'm saying is you can't compare what "China" is doing to most western countries, which have a fraction of the population, so of course there will be fewer reactors, fewer roads, less housing, less production.

I'd say it's more fair to compare it to a region of equal population. People actually do stuff, and the more of them (especially educated ones) there are, the more stuff will get done.

People are the biggest resource these days, which western countries realized a long time ago (or maybe it's the other way around, western countries created this system?). Hence, immigration heavily in favour of the best from other parts of the world.

And higher concentrations of people are more productive and effective. Think cities vs rural areas.

After accounting for that and comparing, if your region (clump of people) is still losing, then you might have a real problem and should take notes from the other group.