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Notes -
As someone with a persistent but highly amateur interest in energy, I’ve long been a fan of nuclear energy but dismayed at its cost overruns and slow build times. But over the last year or so I’ve heard more buzz about SMRs, eg here and here.
On the face of it, SMRs seem to offer (relatively) cheap and rapidly produced fission power that can be scaled up or down easily. And they could even be installed in old coal plants as discussed above.
I assume there’s a catch here. How far out is the technology? Are there major unsolved hurdles? Are there big downsides? I want to indulge my excitement but I’m prepared for disappointment! Any info appreciated.
Seconding @Rex.
It's been a few years since I worked in power. We were running plants, not deploying new ones (much to the senior engineers' chagrin), but he's got the dynamics right. The closest thing we were doing to R&D was a somewhat unusual solar farm out in Colorado.
Keep in mind that the power industry isn't funded by futurists. It's owned in large part by investment banks, and given the high level of capital already built, that leads to a certain conservatism.
I would love to see SMR or nuclear in general take off. I just don't expect it to happen en masse without some sort of breakthrough to change that calculus.
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