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by jpgvm 1557 days ago
The pebble bed reactors are pretty much useless for making weapons grade material. The design was built with non-proliferation in mind. If they wanted to do that they would have just built more of their LWR design.

What do you mean there isn't enough fuel? Not enough pellets/pebbles? Well ofcourse.. there is only 2 operational reactors right now... not enough uranium? Yeah no. There is way more than enough uranium to fuel their projected fleet and it's not like they are building it tomorrow, it's probably going to take until around 2050 to complete.

China has a track record of saying they will do something and then actually doing it, I'm inclined to believe they will make good on that number.

I get that people don't like China but lets be serious, no-one else is actually as serious about nuclear power as them right now.
1 comments
ncmncm 1557 days ago
Xi is old. Will the next dictator share Xi's enthusiasm for high-cost power when the rest of the world is on low-cost power?

Any organization as big as the Chinese gov't makes lots of plans, and changes them as conditions change. It is one thing to be prepared to build a lot of nukes, entirely another to start building them, and entirely a third to finish them. The last will depend on conditions in the world, and of political alliances at the time.

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unrealhoang 1557 days ago
> when the rest of the world is on low-cost power?

And regret about it? The French are in much better position compared to the German with that low-cost power enthusiasm yet still heavily dependent on burning fossil.

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jpgvm 1557 days ago
I think you overestimate how expensive these reactors will be. Also they are part of a mix naturally. China has such vast energy needs they are still building coal, LNG, solar and nuclear all alongside each other.

My current feeling is that if they stick to their plan and build these smaller 600MW reactors that can mostly be built in factories and assembled on-site it's going to be a vastly different economic proposition than existing "big nuclear" that has been attempted in the West.

Of course there is no way to know exactly how it plays out but the inputs look good.

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