[evilos]

It will likely take a minimum of ten years to get a non light water reactor certified by the NRC. And that is very optimistic. Then you have to build the first of a kind plant which is always more expensive and takes longer. Then you have to get good at operating these new kinds of plants.

It's true that MSR and Breeder reactors have lots of potential benefits over traditional LWRs but the truth is, LWRs are more than good enough for right now and we literally can't build enough of them if even if we tried.

You wouldn't want to power all of human society off of LWRs simply because they only access ~5% of the energy in the fuel. But we're so far away from that being a constraint. Build LWRs today and keep developing Breeder/MSR tech.

[jerry1979]

FYI, an MSR got green lit recently: https://fortune.com/2023/12/13/nuclear-reactor-approval-molt...

[mpweiher]

And a Chinese molten salt reactor was finished a couple of years ago and just got its operating license this year.

[evilos]

Yes while that is great news, it's a demonstration reactor. An commercial operating license is a far greater hurdle.