Its just a plan, and no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. I say the APR-1400 is the best now, and it is not perfect. It is a very solid piece of technology with a great track record, and it has low recorded costs and construction times relative to others. But there is some dispute about the cost data, and it may not be the perfect choice. I am not God. Let someone else who knows better correct me if there is a better choice.
The U.S. currently consumes about 4 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. Coal and natural gas provide 60 percent of those kWh, nuclear provides 20 percent, and renewables provide the rest. To displace those kWh from coal and natural gas, we would need 217 new APR-1400s. If KEPCO, GE, or Westinghouse built those reactors as fast as possible, they would probably start with two the first year. Then the second year they would start another four, then eight, and so on until construction plateaus because of limited labor and materials. We could have 217 new power plants in 15 years.
Ask our government to allow for the market conditions to exist that make it possible for private industry to come in and build this nuclear power capacity[1]. These changes will remove the expensive uncertainties associated with government delays through project standardization, and the existing tax incentives paired with the regulatory certainty will create a race in private capital investment in nuclear power.
Step 1 – The NRC will prepare a new Categorical Exclusion from National Environmental Policy Act Review for nuclear power plants[2].
Step 2 – The NRC will provide an alternative licensing track for two or more standardized designs, including the AP1000 and the APR-1400.
Step 3 – The government pays a contractor to conduct a nationwide survey to understand which households in the country would like to have a nuclear power plant in their community if their family members received preferential consideration for new jobs, and their power rates were discounted.
Step 4 – Based on the survey results, private companies select locations and enter a legal agreement with local counties or states to ensure that the power plant is allowed to be completed and run long enough to make the project viable for private capital investment, or to be repaid by the local government their investment with a specified amount of interest. The local government would act to prevent the public from forcing the plant to shut down, which provides the private property protection necessary to leverage private capital investment. No one would be forced to have a nuclear power plant come to their community, so private companies will have to offer the right inducements (jobs at a minimum) for communities to want to host a new nuclear power plant.
That is the whole plan. Investors get regulatory certainty. They already have numerous tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, and the technology is highly reliable. Growing electricity demand from development, AI, data centers, and cryptocurrency mining operations mean that private capital can trust that future demand will support their investment. We could make a race to 217 new reactors. A careful, conscientious, cost-competitive race. If we grow fast enough, we could export our domestically produced fossil fuels, reducing global energy prices and helping to lift the last 700 million people on this planet out of extreme poverty.
[1]Consider the U.S. populist desire is to reduce the financial burden on the U.S. to address climate change concerns, and to protect American industries. If we decarbonized our electric grid, we could back away from all other climate commitments with the obvious justification that we have made a greater impact on climate change than any other country on the planet.
[2] based on the need for electricity, and the simple observation that nuclear power plants have smaller land use and environmental impacts than any other type of power plant.