Haha, this is insightful, but I worry an incorrect conclusion re: cost and overruns. Yes, lots of extremely experienced engineers have retired; but, the pace even in the 70s, 80s and 90s was oft beset by slowdowns and overruns. See: 9 mile, river bend, rancho seco, comanche peak, and those are just the ones I know off the top of my head.
We need more, but it’s a nuclear-and-renewables, not nuclear instead of renewables. I hope smr and other designs get a better shake this time, because climate change doesn’t bode well for coastal installations, and frankly, building many more large PWRs isn’t going to happen quickly.
Frankly I hope we can turn the experience debt to our advantage - rigorous investigation of all the many options disregarding the established dogma of large PWRs would be good in my view. YMMV.
Haha, this is insightful, but I worry an incorrect conclusion re: cost and overruns. Yes, lots of extremely experienced engineers have retired; but, the pace even in the 70s, 80s and 90s was oft beset by slowdowns and overruns. See: 9 mile, river bend, rancho seco, comanche peak, and those are just the ones I know off the top of my head.
We need more, but it’s a nuclear-and-renewables, not nuclear instead of renewables. I hope smr and other designs get a better shake this time, because climate change doesn’t bode well for coastal installations, and frankly, building many more large PWRs isn’t going to happen quickly.
Frankly I hope we can turn the experience debt to our advantage - rigorous investigation of all the many options disregarding the established dogma of large PWRs would be good in my view. YMMV.