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Comment by goda90 | Hacker News Reader

Why does it take time to build though? Is it a technical reason, or economic and regulatory reasons? If the latter, we could probably go faster if as a society we prioritized it.

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Nuclear is seriously unfriendly stuff. Just read up on all the lessons (and coverups) the US nuclear industry learned about making nuclear fuels. The metals involvsd are toxic AF and unforgiving of any stupidity. We have a ton of regulations around this because businesses of the past just dumped things like mildly radioactive tailings to blow around in the wind.

50 years ago France build more than 50 reactors in a decade.

This is not pertinent, for many reasons: https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl...

I have heard the argument that the standard nuclear plant have the inefficiencies of any large building project, like building a big bridge. You never get the optimizations of mass production that you get in a factory that produces tens of thousands of solar panels or lots of wind turbines. I guess that is what SMR is trying to solve. I don’t know how that is going.

Japan's average build time is apparently 5 years[0]. It depends on the regulatory environment and the expertise available.

[0] https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

I think nuclear power should be expanded.

I don't think nuclear power centrals should be rushed.

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