[Animats]

France built most of their reactors to one design in the 1980s. That worked out well, but those reactors are nearing end of life. More recently, reactor projects in France have been taking far too long and going far over budget.[1]

You have to make multiples of something to get production efficiencies, and you have to keep building on a regular basis to keep the production line alive. Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock was once so fed up with the Navy's intermittent aircraft carrier orders that they said that if Congress would order two at once, they'd throw in a third carrier for free.

[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr...