nuclear

The problem with SMRs — small modular reactors — is that no one but Russia has built one yet and a lot of the designs in the works today in the U.S. don’t benefit from the last 70 years of practice we’ve had with light water reactors. 

Another problem is that, while in theory you benefit from repetition in building a bunch of the same thing, you lose out on the economies of scale you get from large scale traditional reactors. 

The only new reactor approved, started and completed in the U.S. since Three Mile Island is the Westinghouse AP1000, which do what was built in Georgia at Plant Vogtle. It was super expensive but that’s bc it was the first of a kind. Now that we’ve finished by design and worked out the kinks, MIT research shows another AP1000 would be the cheapest next reactor to build. 

As a result, my test of whether someone is serious about nuclear is about new nuclear in the U.S. is if this support construction of another AP1000.