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.
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.