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Startup cost for solar is not all that amazingly cheap per watt, and if you include batteries it's probably more than nuclear.

UPower's design doesn't require a large body of water: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/startup-d...

For setup you deliver it with a truck and bury it. Other modular nuclear designs are a bit bigger but still in the range of small natural gas plants, which are competing quite well.

If Helion works out then fission and solar will both be mostly obsolete. They'd be 50MW plants, retailing power at four cents per kWh, with no significant safety concerns.



Solar scales MUCH more fine-grained. There isn't a convenient source for 10kw nuclear power, and there probably never will be, but it's easy to build solar at that scale.


Wouldn't trust a Silicon Valley startup to care about our properly execute for "safety." This is a pump and dump, making a quick buck.


You mean "release early, release often"?


Safe = reliable = high capacity factor = revenue. Look at the INPO and NRC ratings of plant safety and economic performance. They are directly correlated. So it's in every nuclear startup's best interest to be very safe.




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