PS: Rosenergoatom which runs Russia’s nuclear power plants has seemingly made progress in lowering operating costs, but it’s not clear how much of that progress is real. Though Russia is planning to ramp up to ~35% nuclear and is pushing a lot of R&D which is promising. Then again they have issues with solar.
That’s the catch 22, you need to not just be extremely safe but able to convince others outside your organization that it’s going to work. Having been burned twice by failure modes outside the original context it becomes even more difficult to innovate. Novel designs have novel problems and unknown unkowns can be a huge deal.
Can you get away with fewer guards? Well probably, but the minimum is not clear. How about thinner walls, again probably but can you convince others it’s a good tradeoff? Now extend that to everything.
