A few weeks ago the Chinese government announced an audacious plan to build 150 new nuclear plants. No specifics were announced but we assume they were planning to build copies of the Chinese-designed 1,000 MW Hualong One reactor, considered an alternative to Westinghouse’s AP1000. No doubt aware of French and US difficulties completing new reactors on time and within budget, they estimated a per reactor cost of between $2.5-3 billion. The question for us here is: what would a comparable US commitment to build several hundred new nuclear…
