It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to build commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over budget in time and money. China is having success but even they are not projected to have nuclear account for more than single digit percentages of their generation.

Maybe SMR's, thorium, 4th gen, etc will work out, but maybe not.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US Navy consistently builds reactors on-time and in-budget

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kragen 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US and Russian Navies deciding to remain mostly petroleum-fueled is one of the strongest arguments against nuclear becoming very cheap: surely they would do it if it wasn't ruinously expensive, because it eliminates the national security risk of a petroleum blockade and simplifies at-sea logistics immediately.

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MathMonkeyMan an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know much about militaries or nuclear reactors, but I know that reactors are used in some submarines and in some aircraft carriers -- situations where you want a vessel to to remain at sea for long periods of time without refueling, and weight is not a primary concern.

That's pretty niche, though. Think about trucks, tanks, aircraft, generators for outposts, etc. It might be cool if you could safely package a zillion nuclear reactors for those use cases, Terminator style, but I'd guess that reactors are a better fit for centralized, permanent power generation.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Don't presume too much about the US Navy's fleet decisions. Using that same logic you could presume that smaller, aged and poorly maintained fleets are advantageous for naval supremacy since that appears to be the choice of the US Navy for a couple generations now.

Or you could presume that the complete inability to build a merchant marine fleet was also a strategic advantage!

	▲	kragen 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's not just the US Navy. It's also the Russian Navy, the French Navy, the Chinese navy of the PLA, the British Navy, the Indian Navy. If nuclear power were cheaper than oil, or anything other than much more expensive, at least one of those would have gone all-nuclear.

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mr_toad 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There’s something to be said for a standardised design with replaceable parts.

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cbmuser 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

»It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to build commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over budget in time and money.«

The EU also forgot how to build airports and train stations on budget and on time.

Should we stop building airports and train stations?

As for nuclear power plants: Germany and France built most of their reactors on budget and on time.

	▲	dalyons 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		50+ years ago, not relevant.