China, however, is eager to ramp up its production of nuclear energy. It has developed experimental modular reactors, which, though small, have a capacity of 250 megawatts. Although such reactors don't have the 1,000-megawatt clout of American reactors, their small size would allow for more reactor sites across the country; smaller reactor size also means smaller required safety zones, which means that they could be erected closer to electricity-hungry cities. But the main advantage of China's new reactors is how they are built: on a factory line. Once components can be standardized, costs inevitably fall; the smaller, cheaper, and ostensibly safer reactors can then be sold abroad to developing countries also interested in nuclear energy-and it is largely developing, rather than developed, countries (often in the Middle East and South America) that desire an increase in nuclear power.
Yet the Chinese nuclear industry has an undeniable advantage over the American industry: it is not a free market. The steel needed for new reactors is received from state-owned mills, and then processed in state-owned operations. Price controls exist at every step in a reactor's production. Until the cost barrier is ameliorated in the United States, nuclear power will remain relatively unappealing compared to other forms of "clean" energy and fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is an energy source that remains widely contested. Perception of nuclear energies varies from nation to nation, and often is deeply rooted in each country's history. Japan, for example, is notoriously skittish of nuclear power-it is the only country to have been on the receiving end of nuclear weapons and their fallout (during the World War II bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki); the meltdown and consequent radiation leaks of the Fukushima power plants in 2011 have only contributed further to national anti-nuclear sentiment. Yet such opinions are not nearly as uniformly elsewhere: France, for example, derives more than 75% of its energy from nuclear power. Its neighbor Germany, on the other hand, plans to phase out all nuclear power by 2022. As for the United States, its nuclear industry has largely been spinning its wheels for decades.
The last nuclear plant constructed in the United States was built twenty years ago in 1996. American power plants have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, which is considerable; however the cost of each plant is quite high, because every power plant constructed in the United States is unique unto itself. Since the 1980s, the Tennessee Valley Authority
China, however, is eager to ramp up its production of nuclear energy. It has developed experimental modular reactors, which, though small, have a capacity of 250 megawatts. Although such reactors don't have the 1,000-megawatt clout of American reactors, their small size would allow for more reactor sites across the country; smaller reactor size also means smaller required safety zones, which means that they could be erected closer to electricity-hungry cities. But the main advantage of China's new reactors is how they are built: on a factory line. Once components can be standardized, costs inevitably fall; the smaller, cheaper, and ostensibly safer reactors can then be sold abroad to developing countries also interested in nuclear energy-and it is largely developing, rather than developed, countries (often in the Middle East and South America) that desire an increase in nuclear power.
Yet the Chinese nuclear industry has an undeniable advantage over the American industry: it is not a free market. The steel needed for new reactors is received from state-owned mills, and then processed in state-owned operations. Price controls exist at every step in a reactor's production. Until the cost barrier is ameliorated in the United States, nuclear power will remain relatively unappealing compared to other forms of "clean" energy and fossil fuels.
