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Comment by SECProto | Hacker News Reader

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SECProto·

> It also corresponds to 2-3 nuclear reactors

One reactor, if you use a modern design! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)

(Or maybe 2 anyway, to deal with downtime)

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One might argue that the EPR is actually a bit too big and thus has become a lot more difficult to build

One might argue that, but unless the one arguing it has been involved with the construction of an EPR, I would not put a lot of stock in it.

My viewpoint (having involvement with many large (>$100M) construction projects, but not power plants): I don't believe the constructability issues with the EPR have anything to do with the size, specifically. I suspect the root issue is design and construction being too separated on the EPRs.

But unit size does have other considerations outside the project size. For example provisioning capacity for maintenance downtime. Too big units make it quite hard to get enough capacity for the grid to stay up while maintaining hard.

For example OL3 in Finland has to limit its max power because if it trips, the grid needs to shed enough load to stay up: (in finnish) https://www.fingrid.fi/kantaverkko/sahkonsiirto/olkiluoto-3-...

Yes, definitely a consideration - ol3 provides a significant fraction of Finland's power (~8% according to wiki). Having this large a fraction of any grid trip off would be disastrous. Grid managers have to consider similar things anywhere there is a single source providing a large fraction of the power.

Kind of beside the point of meta using the equivalent of 1-4 nuclear plants of capacity.

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