Only Autocracy Can Save Nuclear Power?

No. Only marketocracy can save nuclear power.

Nuclear power in the Western democracies is in total disarray. The build times are four times longer than they need be. The costs are five to ten times larger than they should be. The solution is to extract still more taxpayer money and circulate it to bureaucrats, studies, and politically connected vendors. This just results in the plants becoming still more expensive. Nuscale, a major beneficiary of this ripoff, just topped $20,000 per kW installed. It is easy to despair.

Meanwhile Russia and China forge ahead. Until the Ukraine War, Russia was the undisputed, dominant nuclear power vendor in the world. Not just in building plants but in fuel enrichment, and nuclear power R and D. This despite Mother Russia's immense gas and oil reserves. It is still not clear what the impact of the war will have on this; but it may not matter much.

Whatever happens in Ukraine, China will now take the lead in nuclear power. China has 53 GW of nuclear power installed. The plan is to go to 180 GW total by 2035, which would still be only 17% of their current demand. This looks a bit ambitious, Figure 1. ``Only'' 17 plants totaling 22 GW are under construction. Ten plants totally about 11 GW were approved in 2022. Chinese construction times are still around 6 years. But if they miss the 2035 target, it will be by a year or two. The program is gathering steam.

Figure 1. Chinese Nuclear Capacity Schedule

Importantly, the big push for nuclear does not appear to be global warming. 60% of China's electricity is from coal. Coal pollution is a pervasive, immediate problem. People don't like it and that makes the CCP uneasy. The Chinese are not stupid. They know they need dispatchable power. They don't have a lot of oil and gas. They believe their nuclear is already as cheap as coal. Cheaper and cleaner. Pretty obvious.

Even nuclear skeptic, Bloomberg NEF, puts the Chinese nuclear overnight CAPEX at $2500 to $3000 per kW. The Chinese themselves claim $2350. That is cheaper than coal. The new Hualong 2 design is targeting $2000/kW and a 4 year construction time.

The Chinese also have an active nuclear R and D program including high temperature gas and molten salt reactors, and a 65 MW fast breeder. A successful export program in Pakistan is now starting to spread to the rest of the world, although, unlike the Russians, the main thrust of the Chinese program is still clearly domestic.

What can we learn from this? Obvious first thought: nuclear power needs an autocratic government to succeed. My take is a bit different.

1) Autocratic governments must depend on autocratic leaders.

2) Democratic governments cannot depend on politicians or bureaucrats.

3) Democratic governments must depend on the market.

The Western democracies have totally dominated civilian technology since the 18th century. They led the way in steam, electricity, petroleum extraction, transportation, communication, and just about everything else you can name. They made all these wonders safe and cheap. Properly functioning markets unleash and guide human endeavors in a manner no autocrat can come close to matching.

But when Western democracies turn matters over to politicians and bureaucrats, the results range from stifling to suffocating. Market signals are distorted and perverted. Institutional survival and greed becomes the driving factors, The taxpayer becomes a slave investor. He has no say in how the money that was extracted from him by force or fiat is spent. The politicians award grants and tax breaks. The grantee kicks-back campaign contributions. Sometimes the kickee gets insanely sloppy and has to go to jail, as in the Energy Harbor case in Ohio. But that almost never happens.

Nowhere have Western democracies more completely put the politicians and bureaucrats in charge than in nuclear power. Unsurprisingly, nowhere is everything more copulated up. There is only one way out. Regulate nuclear like we regulated steam Only marketocracy can save nuclear power.