Aren’t SMRs essentially unproven? I think only Russia and China built some working facilities, and the rest is still under construction.

I mean anything could happen but seems like a long shot

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gignico 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They are, but if the country has a law forbidding you from doing anything, things cannot move forward. If they'll not work, of course they won't be built. And large classic reactors are unlikely to be built either, even with this new law.

	▲	icantevenhold 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Gotcha - yea I think it’s a good idea to try out these things. I just hope it doesn’t become a ideological fight to make something work at any cost to fit a certain narrative (same goes for renewables of course)

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teamonkey 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

In a nutshell, yes.

The argument is that small-scale nuclear reactors have been built for military and scientific applications so the tech is not especially novel.

What I think is unproven is whether SMRs can be built and run safely while being cost-effective to other forms of power.

I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if it actually costs less to build and run one full-scale reactor than it does for multiple SMRs of the same output.

That doesn’t mean they won’t have a use.