Yeah, you begin to see why nuclear is so capital intensive seeing detailed photos of the infrastructure like this. Even a task as simple as moving a metal rod between two buildings involves purpose built remote controlled machinery. And the soviets built these RMBK reactors as cheap as they could, cutting a lot of corners.
I've been hopeful someone would work around this with a clever design, production line style manufacturing, etc. But so far every attempt has floundered. The latest serious one, NuScale, is still going forward, but they've slipped on schedule, price, and have lost a few backers already, so it's not looking great.
I've been hopeful someone would work around this with a clever design, production line style manufacturing, etc. But so far every attempt has floundered. The latest serious one, NuScale, is still going forward, but they've slipped on schedule, price, and have lost a few backers already, so it's not looking great.