It would require a radically new design that takes a lot of the cost out. You also have the spent fuel storage problem and the risk factors of a meltdown (however small) to tackle which are always working against you. Technology development in the Nuclear area is SLOW.
Now compare to batteries. There are thousands of companies working on new technology development.
It’s just a matter of brain power and capital working on the problems.
I don’t see a viable path forward for Nuclear at the current costs and with how dramatic the rise of renewables and battery storage is increasing.
Just starting build them at a much bigger scaled would probably result in significant decrease in costs on it's own. China, Korea and Russia somehow manage to build at much lower cost.
> risk factors of a meltdown (however small) to tackle which are always working against you. Technology development in the Nuclear area is SLOW.
True, then again these really aren't a big deal. Burning coal is about the same as having a Chernobyl size disaster every few year (even when we 100% ignore climate change) and most people don't seem to mind that much.
Yes, I'm sure governments are going to fork over a trillion dollars to demonstrate that this time, for sure, honest, nuclear costs will decline with experience. /s
The generic problem is that nuclear plants have to be big to amortize fixed costs (like personnel to operate and guard them), but if they're big they have lots of parts and more connections between parts, so to make them sufficiently reliable they need expensive careful construction. The more welds a NPP has, the more reliable each individual weld must be.
In contrast, something like a solar field, while it has lots of parts, doesn't depend on all those parts working for the field to work. It's by its nature highly redundant and fault tolerant. It also doesn't require supervision anywhere near the same extent as a nuclear plant.
Now compare to batteries. There are thousands of companies working on new technology development.
It’s just a matter of brain power and capital working on the problems.
I don’t see a viable path forward for Nuclear at the current costs and with how dramatic the rise of renewables and battery storage is increasing.