If nuclear is easy to build, people should stop posting about it and build it, stop invading every damn article about the energy transition with comments that say “nuclear is the only way, now let me explain the unlikely set of political and economic conditions that will actually cause something to happen at the scale we need.” China is currently building nuclear faster than any nation in the world, and still the rates of construction (and increase in rate of construction) aren’t in any way keeping up with their renewable buildouts.
Any explosion in nuclear builds that had a chance of mattering on the time scales we need is not going to require just a few standard designs. It’s going to require mass factory construction of SMRs, and solving all the problems that haven’t been solved in that area. And we’re not there at all.
China is significantly slowing down their nuclear expansion. https://cleantechnica.com/2024/08/22/china-still-hasnt-learn...
My knowledge is likely incorrect, but I think the 30 year number comes mostly from the politics side. It takes a long time to get approval, much less time to build.
Objectively false. Average global nuclear power plant construction time is somewhere around 7 years. Some get delayed significantly, some are done in 3 years, but it averages out shorter than you think.
For perspective, solar plants are about 2 years to get operational, combined cycle natural gas is around 3.
The other thing to keep in mind is that nuclear plants have seen significant upgrades, and continue to over their lifecycles. The US has added 19GW of nuclear capacity without building any new plants in the last couple decades which is certainly a reason why new nuclear projects haven't been happening that often.
Meanwhile China is building a ton of new plants, Russia is building something like 20 reactors for other countries, France has decided to keep all of its nuclear capacity after they cancelled their plan to shut them down, so I'd guess nuclear energy isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
What would be necessary is to have the NRC/etc approve a few modern reactor designs along with clear guidelines as to where/how they can be built. That'd reduce the regulatory burden on all sides which in turn would reduce cost, construction time, and operational safety significantly. That's as close to a solution to this problem as I've come across, and, quarterly, I write a letter to the government agencies in question telling them that. It's not much, but hey, I'm doing my part.