Re:The four-horse race to decarbonise steel
by m348e912 on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:23AM
(#35511109)
>>China builds nuclear power not because it is cheap but because it shares a lot of the costs and skills base of their nuclear military.
One of the previous commenters above mentioned that China abandoned their own plans bought their design from Germany, so it's conceivable that if China had no military nuclear program they could have still built a reactor. (That's of course if the western world allowed it)
Of course they could. Almost any country could.
Nonetheless, the cost to the constructor is such that without a military reason it doesn't make any sense to build one.
I expect North Korea will turn its attention to civilian nuclear power fairly soon now that the race to become a fully fledged nuclear power is complete. It would make economic sense to them given the industrial capacity, skills and resource base it has accumulated in the process of building the bomb.
Iran builds it because it wants the option of having a bomb.
Every country who builds nuclear power is either a China or an Iran, never because it is cheap. It isnt.