“Keeping up with China…” The energy collective. 1 Dec 10
“…Since low labor costs, represent the most significant Chinese and Indian cost advantage, it is unlikely that European and American reactor manufacturers will be able to compete with the Asians on labor costs. Labor costs for conventional reactors can be lowered by factory construction of reactor componant modules, but the Chinese are clearly ahead of the West in that game. Yet the weakness of the Chinese system is the relatively large amount of field labor that the manufacture of large reactors requires.
“…If Europe and the United States cannot meet the Asian energy cost challenge, their economies will encounter a significant decline. Because of Labor cost advantages, it is unlikely that Generation III nuclear plants will ever cost less to build in the United States or Europe than in Asia. in order to keep the American and European economies competitive, the United States and Europe must adopt a low cost, factory manufactured nuclear technology. Molten Salt nuclear technology represents the lowest cost approach, and is highly consistent with factory manufacture and other cost lowering approaches. Couple to that the outstanding safety of molten salt nuclear technology, the potential for dramatically lowering the creation of nuclear waste, and the obstacles to nuclear proliferation posed by molten salt nuclear rechnology, and we see a real potential for keeping the American and European economies competitive, at least as far as energy costs are concerned.”