The global dash to reboot the nuclear power industry accelerated.
Britain moved to extend the life of a major reactor by 20 years, seeking to bridge a multi-year gap between its older generation facilities retiring and new ones opening, and Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest, restarts operations today after 15 years.
Building new nuclear sites faces political and regulatory hurdles: France’s EDF churned out dozens in the 1980s, taking just six years for each. Its most recent took 16 years, and the company is turning to China to relearn “nimble construction,” the Financial Times reported. The Chinese industry has no such problems: It is constructing 35 units, each expected to take about five years. The US is building zero.
