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Construction cost of nuclear reactors (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by cm0002@lemmings.world to c/nuclear@feddit.nl

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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/22/climate/china-us-nuclear-energy-race.html

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[–] KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious about how they choose the locations to build these plants. Does putting six of these in close proximity to one another, as seen in the satellite image of China, create a risk of a single meltdown threatening all six? I would have to assume, no, because these are all very smart people, but what measures do they use to ensure that the entire site isn't jeopardized by one bad reactor?

[–] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Fun fact: Chernobyl has four reactors, and the other three remained operational for years after unit 4's meltdown in 1986. Unit 2 was shut down in 1991, unit 1 was shut down in 1996, and unit 3 was shut down in 2000.

Unit 2 was due to "complications resulting from a turbine fire" according to Wikipedia, but there's no particular reason, other than lack of political will, that units 1 and 3 couldn't have still been running today.