Bernauer: Large reactor builds are far slower in US than Asia
Doug Bernauer · A Nuclear Comeback: Are New Reactors the Answer? · Mar 18, 2024 · at 11:56
Doug Bernauer, CEO of microreactor company Radiant, contrasts construction speed and deployment timelines for large-scale nuclear reactors across regions.
0:00 / 0:14exact quote · 14.6s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And the typical construction timeline is really like six to 15 years on the big reactors right now, depending who makes them, even for the exact same reactor, like an AP 1000, built in the US is very slow, built in Asia is very fast.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Doug Bernauer
Bernauer: Town diesel power causes 12 premature deaths over 20 years
“And if you look at what happens in a town over 20 years of span if you pick a diesel genset instead of a reactor there's something like 12, ah, deaths that are going to occur prematurely from the use of diesel.”
Bernauer: Radiant targets 2026 field demonstration for microreactor
“Our timeline has not changed since we started the company in twenty-twenty. We want to do a field demonstration in twenty-twenty-six.”
Bernauer: Nuclear is the only viable way to power Mars fuel production
“And so I looked into solar power on Mars and found that was really challenging, and then I looked into nuclear power on Mars and found that was the only way.”
Bernauer: Deployable and retrievable nuclear reactors require sizing around 1 MW
“It's only possible if you make a size about one megawatt, right? Make a small enough reactor, you can do this, transport it there and back again sort of trick, and take the fuel back, and so you have, like, no nuclear strings attached.”