Energy Department teams up with Bill Gates to move mini-nuclear plants to market
I myself is against idea of small scale nuclear. Economics is not of its side. Every single nuclear facility is has a lot of fixed expenses to keep it running. Think of the amount of qualified cadres needed to run it: every nuclear power station is effectively a small science institute on its own.<p>Multi-gigawatt facilities are the ones where nuclear has biggest the payout.<p>The few nuclear power stations that are being completed these days are single reactor designs and effectively experimental plants. This is why digits on economics got unfavourable recently.<p>Fuel costs are negligible in comparison to every other operating expenses. This way, simple PWRs and BWRs on multi-gigawatt scales are the only designs making sense economically. Next gen CANDUs make great sense for fuel economy (and economic costs of refuelling), but even then, frequent refuelling needs are not as dramatic as the higher costs of CANDUs. Heavy water price has only been going up - and even something like an international initiative to setup a global heavy water &quot;bank&quot; will help little.<p>4th Generation reactors - the first few reactors are assuredly can&#x27;t run at profit. Their sole purpose are to be research facilities. Any nation constructing them should have full realisation that constructing gen 4 only servers the purpose of advancing its science and industrial competence, not and making money in any immediate future.