When I was working in the utility space, the duration from identifying a need to commissioning a natural gas power plant was 11 years.

The state government subsidized efficiency and other measures to reduce peak demand just to slow growth and control price escalation.

Nuclear is a shitshow to build and realistically requires federal action. Similar to how the FCC declared 5G a national security priority and took away local government oversight of infrastructure siting, the Feds could do something similar.

Unfortunately, since the US has a political party that believes that political consent comes from control of geography, the coal mines and gas wells are better represented in Congress than people. The US will not be leading this transition, and we’ll be second fiddle to those who do, likely in Asia and Africa — as there is no alternative for them other than persistent poverty.

About 2 years at the factory, 2 years onsite:

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor...

We need to be ramping up these immediately... and targeting production of at least dozens per year. Its the perfect industry for a country like the UK to pump money into right now.

The UK is about to build 16 of these. They hope to have them operational by 2035.

Truly? That's great news, I had no idea.

Indeed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889108

Are the Chinese building them for the UK?

I'd venture that the time to build is inconsequential compared to the environmental and design reviews - which is why bothering to build a small one doesn't make a lot of sense in the US anyway.