The delays on this project have nothing at all to do with people opposing nuclear construction.
The site welcomed more reactors. The results were approved under a new proces that was explicitly requested by the industry in order to expedite everything.
Nuclear is a big construction project, and suffers from the same big construction project cost disease that every other big construction project suffers from in the US. In addition, it suffers from needing absolutely massive amounts of custom, high precision welding, and high precision concrete pours unlike any other construction project. In addition to being some of the most complex projects ever designed, it requires a large amount of highly skilled labor really only gets used for this one purpose in our economy.
I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem, the inherent labor and construction efficiencies that made nuclear a good fit for the mid-20th century, but a less good fit for the 21st century when labor is much more valuable, and perhaps we should put it to more valuable purposes when we have far cheaper alternatives. Building buildings for manufacturing results in much better utilization of labor. A manufacturing facilities that produce 4 GW of solar/year is an exponential improvement over a 1GW nuclear reactor.
The site welcomed more reactors. The results were approved under a new proces that was explicitly requested by the industry in order to expedite everything.
Nuclear is a big construction project, and suffers from the same big construction project cost disease that every other big construction project suffers from in the US. In addition, it suffers from needing absolutely massive amounts of custom, high precision welding, and high precision concrete pours unlike any other construction project. In addition to being some of the most complex projects ever designed, it requires a large amount of highly skilled labor really only gets used for this one purpose in our economy.
I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem, the inherent labor and construction efficiencies that made nuclear a good fit for the mid-20th century, but a less good fit for the 21st century when labor is much more valuable, and perhaps we should put it to more valuable purposes when we have far cheaper alternatives. Building buildings for manufacturing results in much better utilization of labor. A manufacturing facilities that produce 4 GW of solar/year is an exponential improvement over a 1GW nuclear reactor.