Comment by jmyeet

China is a special case. In fact, it's the one country on Earth I'd actually trust to build, maintain and regulate nuclear power.

I don't believe China is convinced (yet) of the long-term viability of nuclear power (fission or fusion) but, like with many things, they're hedging their bets. In the US? It's just another opportunity to transfer wealth from the government coffers to private hands through a series of cost overruns, massive delays and under-deliveries.

China's advantages here are extreme. They have the manufacturing base, would likely use the same plant designs in multiple places (rather than a separate procurement process in every city or province) and they have a bunch of existing infrastructure that gives them options, like they're pioneers in UHVDC transmission lines that might make it more viable to build a nuclear reactor away from populated centers. Even UHVDC development was to solve a largely China-only problem: the power generation is mostly in the west part of the country whereas the people are in the east.

And yes the CSIRO report is Australia-specific but the timeframes for building nuclear power in the US are similar: 10-15 years. Starting today it's unclear if such a plant would be online by 2040. Yet we can build solar in months.

That's the other part of this: if we're just looking at data centers, theyh can be placed anywhere. You can ignore where fiber runs. You just build more fiber if you have to. DCs need power and water, basically. The Southwest is very efficient for solar [1] but light on for water. There's the Colorado River but that's been tapped beyond its limits already.

Along the Mississippi is another option. Not as efficient as the Southwest for solar but water is plentiful. Inclement weather is an issue though, both tornadoes and the winters.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/7fk7eu/solar_power...