Chernobyl design was never in use in the US, but nuclear went through a long period of near universal public opposition to its expansion because of the high profile disasters that it caused.

Now the cost of solar and storage are dropping at a rate I doubt nuclear is ever going to make a significant comeback. I'm not opposed to it, but I wonder if the economics will ever be favorable even with regulatory reform.

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ch4s3 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Chernobyl design was never in use in the US

Commercially. Several early test reactors were essentially just graphite moderated piles not unlike Chernobyl, but they were abandoned for a reason.

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mikkupikku an hour ago | parent [-]

Graphite moderated reactors are broadly fine, the problem was with some technical specifics of that specific reactor design, and the operational culture that surrounded it. After Chernobyl, those flaws were corrected and operation of other RBMK reactors has continued to this very day, with no repeats.

	▲	ch4s3 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's good additional clarification, I only meant to point out that graphite moderated, water cooled reactors had existed in the US and UK.

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WorldMaker an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Chernobyl may have done a lot to inflame cultural imagination of what could happen in the worst cases, but the US still had its own high profile disasters like Three Mile Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

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mattmaroon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It would. People are still building some natural gas plants even despite renewables being cheaper and nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that and, other than regulatory issues, is basically better in every way.

	▲	jerlam an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nuclear might be better and cheaper over it's entire lifecycle; but given that the starting costs are so high, the time to build is so long, and the US has serious problems with cost overruns in public projects, as well as the fickleness of both government and public opinion, I don't expect another plant to be built.
	▲	prpl 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		There will continue to be new gas plants as long as there are coal plants which will be converted, usually around the time a major overhaul would need to be taken anyway.
	▲	9rx 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that That is the case for base load generation, where the plant can operate near 100% capacity all the time. But that isn't were gas is usually being deployed; it being used for reserve generation. The economics of nuclear isn't as favourable in that application as it costs more or less the same to run at partial generation, or even no generation, as it does when it is going full blast.