Bill Gates-backed nuclear contender Terra Power aims to build dozens of UK reactors::A Bill Gates-backed clean energy player is hoping to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the UK and will compete with global rivals.
It might have been why in the past, but the issues right now with building new plants is getting a design through production that can survive the review process. Costs come down on the second plant because you have a design you can clone rather than developing it from scratch.
There are already several uses by several countries in using miniature nuclear power plants. This is just an attempt to make it more available to everyone.
Nuclear has never been competitive in terms of cost against the alternatives, first coal and gas, now renewables. In fact, nuclear is only getting more expensive. I really don’t understand why you want to pay more for power than is necessary. I don’t.
But it’s a waste of resources, remember money is a token used to distribute production potential and reconsider it - all those people and resources could be allocated to other more efficient projects.
Nuclear in twenty years or solar, wind, trains, more efficiently insulated buildings, localized and ecologically sustainable infrastructure and industry before the end of the decade?
We need to compare the cost of nuclear against firm renewables, including storage (developing technology) and long-distance transmission (location-dependent political/technical challenges).
Comparing against coal and gas is meaningless unless we include the atmospheric cleanup costs.
In places where this has been studied extensively renewables with storage are still the cheapest by a long way. Australia has the whole state of South Australia (plus Tasmania) as a test case. SA has transitioned to almost 100% renewable supply in under a decade.
We have a cost effective, distributed, redundant, easy to build solution. SMRs are not proven in cost or reliability. They should be studied and trialed, but not at the expense of acting responsibly today.
