[pydry]

China builds nuclear power not because it is cheap but because it shares a lot of the costs and skills base of their nuclear military.

Iran builds it because it wants the option of having a bomb.

Take out military concerns and it is economic for neither of them.

Every country who builds nuclear power stations is either a nuclear power sharing military costs (France, UK, China...) or is taking out an option on quickly developing a bomb (Sweden, Iran, Japan, South Korea) against geopolitical concerns that are glaringly obvious.

[m348e912]

>>China builds nuclear power not because it is cheap but because it shares a lot of the costs and skills base of their nuclear military.

One of the previous commenters above mentioned that China abandoned their own plans bought their design from Germany, so it's conceivable that if China had no military nuclear program they could have still built a reactor. (That's of course if the western world allowed it)

[pydry]

Of course they could. Almost any country could.

Nonetheless, the cost to the constructor is such that without a military reason it doesn't make any sense to build one.

I expect North Korea will turn its attention to civilian nuclear power fairly soon now that the race to become a fully fledged nuclear power is complete. It would make economic sense to them given the industrial capacity, skills and resource base it has accumulated in the process of building the bomb. For most other countries? Not so much.