> Being able to power so many homes (and being more centralized than I thought) means these reactors would still require huge infrastructure investment in order to spread the power.
would it? they'd plug directly into the super-grid, presumably in locations that are currently undergoing decommissioning
and then you could slowly replace CCGTs with them
after that point if you need more energy you'd have to upgrade the grid
Ideally, it would be nice to drop it in as a replacement for an existing plant. However, it may be that the grid cannot sustain the existing plant being shut down without new capacity already in place and there's the more problematic issue of location. There's plenty of gas peaker plants in locations where people would not accept a nuclear plant, such as in the middle of cities.
We're not talking about a plant being down for a few hours, it'd be a few months for the existing plant to be decommissioned and the new plant to be installed, assuming the existing footprint does not allow the two plants to exist side by side
But yes, many existing nuclear sites may be an ideal location if available.
The grid is designed to deal with the loss of a power station like this. In fact it does all the time as generators go offline for maintenance etc.
Also, the land requirements for this are really modest. Our legacy power station sites are pretty big. The old coal stations needed a lot of space for coal. The nuclear sites tend to be built in rural areas surrounded by countryside. There are also quite a few that were built on massive WWII airfields and have huge areas. Finding land will not be a problem.
My guess is that the biggest issue will be finding a site with suitable geology (for the hole) and access for heavy/wide vehicles.
would it? they'd plug directly into the super-grid, presumably in locations that are currently undergoing decommissioning
and then you could slowly replace CCGTs with them
after that point if you need more energy you'd have to upgrade the grid