Comment by matthewdgreen
14 days ago
But they aren’t. China is building nuclear faster than the West, but they still require seven years per new plant. Their original plan was for nuclear to be 18% of the grid by 2060, but their renewable buildouts have made that number seem much too high. The existing nuclear designs can’t really provide dispatchable power for the vast renewable grid they’re building, either.
The answer for nuclear (if there is one) is factory built SMRs. Those exist in the experimental phases. If SMRs take off, the current designs aren’t going to matter. If SMRs don’t take off, nuclear itself probably isn’t going to matter.
> they still require seven years per new plant
Three years planned for permitting [1], and that's before any ground is broken.
[1] https://www.permits.performance.gov/permitting-project/fast-...
I call them HMRs, Hail Mary Reactors. They're the last gasp before nuclear flatlines. People are proposing them not because they're likely to succeed, but because they're the only option left.