Comment by dalyons
2 days ago
This really should be a top level comment. It accurately explains the broken economics of nuclear, and is the real reason effectively no nukes will be built going forward. Not the usual tired points about regulations and safety fears and Chernobyl or whatever
To be fair South Australia is:
* Incredibly sunny
* Incredibly sparely populated
* Functionally winterless
Like it's the perfect setup for solar.
Somewhere like Denmark, Japan, even the US Northeast does not have those.
Imagine a city-sized solar panel array, sitting somewhere very shiny in the North African region.
A long, not insurmountable, cable strings its way across the gap and into Europes tender bits, i.e Spain and Turkey/etc.
Electrons, once redirected/collected, can be redirected far.
Heck, at scale, probably a lot of it could be done with microwave, anyway ..
If only these nations weren't in such constant conflict with one another. Those with all the energy could turn their deserts into paradise. Those with paradise already, could use their free time to find new ways to collect energy, better.
Instead, we drive to work.
Precisely. France built out its current nuclear fleet over decades. The first reactors were expensive, but then costs came down. Of course, then they stopped and are now trying to restart again with new reactor models. It's been expensive and it's not clear they'll start building en-mass again.
France's reactors became successively more expensive as the need for more layered safety features was exposed. The first generation (CP0, CP1, CP2) was quite inexpensive, the P4 and P'4 designs were already more expensive and the N4 was yet more expensive.
At this point I think if you want inexpensive nuclear, you just have to accept some risk. Going from 99.9% safety to 99.99% adds just too much complexity to remain economically viable.