[dalyons]

china is a single party state. they can order whatever plants they want and they'll get built - regardless of how much they cost, regardless of if the power is economically competitive, with no need for insurance (the state will clean anything up if it comes to that), and with no need to factor in disposal or decommissioning costs. They can do all this and need not worry if the math pencils out long term, or if the bet was wrong vs renewables. They cant get voted out. Yes their buildout is impressive, but its just not a comparable situation in any way to the mostly free market driven west.

Similarly the US navy does not have to produce commercially viable nuclear power on an all in cost basis. Different goals, different situation.

[simplyluke]

South Korea produces power plants at almost exactly the same cost and is not a single party command economy as far as I know.

[dalyons]

not single party, but the nukes are all majority owned by the state. Which tends to obscure real costs, as there are no insurance, cleanup, and capex loan interest costs. All covered by the state. Which are some of the biggest costs that make private nukes untenable in the west.

State owned NPPs could work like this elsewhere, i just dont see it happening politically. Outside of maybe france or some other euro countries that still believe in state owned industries. The rest of the west is too deep in the "free market and private industry will solve everything" rabbithole.