[natmaka]

Facts: Superphénix was a prototype. It didn't reach its goal (reaching the industrial stage). Not a single model of breeder reactor reached it. Mentioning its high availability rate neglects planned shutdowns (planning enough of them improves it). Its load factor in 1996 (just before its shutdown), more relevant, was 0.31, thus well below the minimum viable for an industrial reactor. Some people consider the project to be a success, but no expert or its operator has ever said so (they proclaimed their confidence in their ability to achieve industrial operation by an unspecified date), and its successor, named "ASTRID", launched 12 years later, which was supposed to design and build a reactor for €5 billion, spent more than €700 million on studies alone before being put on hold, so "it worked, but everything has to be redesigned...".