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Comment by neaanopri | Hacker News Reader

US also influences policy adopted by other countries, so if the US adopted the French nuclear model, we would influence other countries.

I think we're hurt by our domestic oil and gas reserves here. We have powerful interests who want the US to use its domestic oil and gas reserves, so a large-scale shift TO nuclear and AWAY FROM gas seems quite difficult to execute.

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This is quite limited though and is why I talked about also including Europe. The limitation is that the US isn't going to let developing nations have nuclear power or they'll limit it, a la Iran Deal. The technology isn't really being exported, so that influence wouldn't be exactly global. Just to rich trading partners (i.e. the west, Japan, and Korea).

> The technology isn't really being exported, so that influence wouldn't be exactly global.

China has started exporting their Hualong One reactor with at least two Pakistani Nuclear Power Stations building a total of 5 Hualong One reactors: Karachi and Chashma.

Argentina is expected to start building a Hualong One reactor by next year and it is under consideration in the United Kingdom.

> Most reactors on order or planned are in the Asian region, though there are major plans for new units in Russia.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...

> China is planning at least 150 new nuclear reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...

If it goes anything like their buildout of high speed railway China would probably end up doubling the reactor capacity built by 2035 over this plan.

The article mentions Turkey as well, using Russian tech. When a NATO country chooses nuclear tech from the country that brought us Chernobyl, the US is definitely asleep at the wheel.

Why not? Most developing countries don't want nuclear weapons. They're a liability. If I were a country like Jordan (random example), I would be perfectly happy signing a (presumably good) deal for nuclear power, even if it came with anti-proliferation controls.

Exporting technology for reactors is tricky business. While yes, you can build reactors without proliferation concerns (see Iran Deal), there's the issue that if you're learning to build reactors you're going to export the knowledge necessary to build weapons. That's the tricky part. And if you have any nuclear technology, we're going to have to spend more money to spy on you to ensure that's all you are doing.

Nuclear weapons aren't always a liability either. It is one of NK's greatest defenses. Specifically that if attacked they know they will lose and have no real reason to not use the hail mary. This helps their chances even if China decides to no longer protect them. Obviously this is country dependent though and depends on a lot of factors. But just trying to say that it isn't always a liability.

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