Comment by manvillej
1 year ago
the newest 4 nuclear reactors in the USA produce 4500 megawatt hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
these are newer and more efficient. so they are likely producing more than the average reactor. So its closer to 1.25 reactors worth of electricity.
but data centers are a HUGE driver of electricity consumption.
Whenever there is a post about nuclear it is always about the latest and greatest.
Or in the future - "how many SMRs is that?".
I should call it the law-of-something.
I feel reasonably comfortable with the estimated 2-3 reactors.
I could have said 1-4 but...
(there are lots of reactors around 4-500MW too)
If you said 1-4, I would not have replied - that is an appropriate bound for how many traditional nuclear plants it takes to provide 1.7GW
2 to 3 is accurate for Canada, where the last nuclear plant to connect to the grid was 31 years ago. For the US, the range is 1.25 to 3.5 (four reactors in the last 30 years). For China, the range is 1.05 to 8 (56 reactors built in the last 30 years, but the 200 and 300 MW reactors are kind of special, so 1.05 to 4 is a reasonable range). For France, 1.15 to 2.0 (five reactors in the last 30 years).