Solar is growing fast, and much faster in China than nuclear. Nuclear is down globally. Germany made right decision to focus on renewables with legacy coal as backup, simply due to astronomical costs of refurbishing/extending life of its ageing nuclear a few years. There is no economic benefit of new nuclear energy.
It’s just faster to add another solar panel to existing infrastructure than build a nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactor is 10 years investment so in current news and statistics you won’t see it. But you can see how fast coal power plants are growing in China because coal power plants are easier than nuclear. Nuclear power is not short time investment but long term commitment that is lacking in current governments policies. Current gov officials are no different than instagram celebrities so they seek cheap methods to stay in power. That’s why world is collapsing, because of expotential need of power source and expotential lack of delivery of so. Look at how many nuclear power plants China have in plans or started building and how many of them rest of world combined have.
But you can see how fast coal power plants are growing in China because coal power plants are easier than nuclear.
Thermal electricity generation in China rose 1.5% in 2024, while total electricity consumption grew 8.5%. They added more storage than coal plants. While there was hope that 2024 would see a decline in thermal, it will happen in 2025. Coal’s share of electricity dropped from 60% to 53%. China’s strategy for coal is resilience and national security. They build them for construction sector sponsorship, and the main 2 benefits, rather than their energy policy.
Look at how many nuclear power plants China have in plans or started building and how many of them rest of world combined have.
I’ve read reports that many nuclear plans are on hold/cancelled in China. Among the biggest difficulties for nuclear, is forecasting a demand increase 10 years from now, while not filling that demand gap earlier with much cheaper electricity sources. Nuclear needs the corruption of forcing scarcity until it is completed, so that it can sell all of its electricity. The capital costs of nuclear overwhelm all other costs, such that operating at 50% capacity doubles the breakeven/target ROI electricity price per kwh.
That’s because they needed to basically reinvent the Westinghouse reactor because of technology ban. As a result they also progressed with own reactor technology. Ex china move towards SMR with cooperation with Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov 70mw for $700m including the boat, is still way cheaper than Vogtle, and western nuclear sub/ship power plants, Low enriched fuel. Heat use in Arctic adds value. China’s HTR-PM at $6/w is good for a prototype SMR. Even lower enriched fuel. Western corruption is incapable of reaching this value level. Hatred levels incapable of buying them. All western SMR designs use more expensive fuel that are sourced from traditional military purposed reactors as well.
The $6/w figure would be great for US, but in China it is over 12x more than solar. But it becomes reasonable tech to pursue. High tech that gets cheaper as it scales up. Unique SMR approach is that the nuclear heat is generated in “container sized units”, but traditional built turbine unit can be fed by multiple containers.
Thorium plans link are not inspiring because it fails to address why thorium failed historically.
Solar is growing fast, and much faster in China than nuclear. Nuclear is down globally. Germany made right decision to focus on renewables with legacy coal as backup, simply due to astronomical costs of refurbishing/extending life of its ageing nuclear a few years. There is no economic benefit of new nuclear energy.
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Nuclear-power-remains-irrelevant-in-international-market-report#%3A~%3Atext=Global+wind+and+solar+facilities%2Covertaking+nuclear+power+by+40%25.
It’s just faster to add another solar panel to existing infrastructure than build a nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactor is 10 years investment so in current news and statistics you won’t see it. But you can see how fast coal power plants are growing in China because coal power plants are easier than nuclear. Nuclear power is not short time investment but long term commitment that is lacking in current governments policies. Current gov officials are no different than instagram celebrities so they seek cheap methods to stay in power. That’s why world is collapsing, because of expotential need of power source and expotential lack of delivery of so. Look at how many nuclear power plants China have in plans or started building and how many of them rest of world combined have.
Thermal electricity generation in China rose 1.5% in 2024, while total electricity consumption grew 8.5%. They added more storage than coal plants. While there was hope that 2024 would see a decline in thermal, it will happen in 2025. Coal’s share of electricity dropped from 60% to 53%. China’s strategy for coal is resilience and national security. They build them for construction sector sponsorship, and the main 2 benefits, rather than their energy policy.
I’ve read reports that many nuclear plans are on hold/cancelled in China. Among the biggest difficulties for nuclear, is forecasting a demand increase 10 years from now, while not filling that demand gap earlier with much cheaper electricity sources. Nuclear needs the corruption of forcing scarcity until it is completed, so that it can sell all of its electricity. The capital costs of nuclear overwhelm all other costs, such that operating at 50% capacity doubles the breakeven/target ROI electricity price per kwh.
That’s because they needed to basically reinvent the Westinghouse reactor because of technology ban. As a result they also progressed with own reactor technology. Ex china move towards SMR with cooperation with Russia.
And they plan to finish Thorium reactor this year that will revolutionize amount of waste and reactor location problems. https://min.news/en/science/28ee0f79aafe4d7a2deb675f4f1b1620.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov 70mw for $700m including the boat, is still way cheaper than Vogtle, and western nuclear sub/ship power plants, Low enriched fuel. Heat use in Arctic adds value. China’s HTR-PM at $6/w is good for a prototype SMR. Even lower enriched fuel. Western corruption is incapable of reaching this value level. Hatred levels incapable of buying them. All western SMR designs use more expensive fuel that are sourced from traditional military purposed reactors as well.
The $6/w figure would be great for US, but in China it is over 12x more than solar. But it becomes reasonable tech to pursue. High tech that gets cheaper as it scales up. Unique SMR approach is that the nuclear heat is generated in “container sized units”, but traditional built turbine unit can be fed by multiple containers.
Thorium plans link are not inspiring because it fails to address why thorium failed historically.