>All of these favor again bigger reactors.

how does having less available space favor a bigger reactor?

and how is constructing a bigger reactor faster than constructing a smaller one?

bryanlarsen an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There are two ways of achieving economies of scale: making things bigger or making more of them.

For small quantities, the former is usually more effective -- making things bigger lets you make fewer of them, reducing costs.

For large quantities, a factory can enable insane economies of scale.

SMR proponents are talking about building dozens of reactors. That fits very firmly in the "small quantity" column where economies of scale almost always favor building things bigger.

▲

cauch 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just a guess (I'm not the previous user), but I guess you need to look at the space _per GWh_?

If a big nuclear reactor takes 10x more space but has 20x more capacity, then it means not having much space favors the big nuclear reactor rather than building 10 small ones that will take twice more space.

(and same for the time)

	▲	john_strinlai an hour ago \| parent [-]
		its probably my fault for not making myself clear. i mean when the available space is constrained to a specific amount of space that cannot be exceeded. just picking random numbers: i have 1 square mile available. a big reactor takes 4 square miles. i cannot fit a big reactor, despite the bigger reactor being more efficient.

▲

Arodex an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If you need 500 MW, you build one 500 MW reactor, not five 100 MW reactors. They will take more space.

As for speed, a 100 MW reactor is not commissioned in 1/5 of the time a 500 MW reactor is.