As much as I am a proponent of nuclear, it's time has past.
It's already non-competitive with solar + battery for any new start builds. I doubt a single commercial installation would exist of these microreactors before battery and solar/battery costs drop another 50-80%.
Even hydro will have issues competing in 20 years.
Community input is nice, but we first need working small reactors. Until we see that there is no need to talk about community input. And so far small reactors keep taking longer to get built than estimates.
The biggest risk of these kind of micro reactors is what happens when they are abandoned and / or receive no investment, maintenance, repairs, etc. for years or decades. What is a catastrophic failure like in that case?
For example, a water and sewer utility near me, serving a similar scale customer base as one of these reactors (a few hundred to a thousand or so), just had to get put into receivership. All the infrastructure has been falling apart for years and the utility had not been investing anything into upkeep, putting its own customers in danger. What if they had owned one of these reactors?
Dear Public
We need cheerfull support for something you will pay for but never see.The military just gave us that tiny little head shake that means NO, and just wont share there nukes, and the accountants said trill something, so we are reaching out for your involvement.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 30.6 ms ] threadIt's already non-competitive with solar + battery for any new start builds. I doubt a single commercial installation would exist of these microreactors before battery and solar/battery costs drop another 50-80%.
Even hydro will have issues competing in 20 years.
Reactors in towns are dumb. They make sense in remote locations where solar doesn’t work, e.g. West Australian or seabed mining, or on the Moon.
For example, a water and sewer utility near me, serving a similar scale customer base as one of these reactors (a few hundred to a thousand or so), just had to get put into receivership. All the infrastructure has been falling apart for years and the utility had not been investing anything into upkeep, putting its own customers in danger. What if they had owned one of these reactors?
Glad you can help!
Your Billionairs