> Now pick the best (least costly / swiftest build) new power reactor build in the last ten years anywhere in the world.
Unless you can pay the workers the same rates, and it's politically acceptable to the electorate to use the same standards, this is as irrelevant as the fact (yes, I have done the maths on this) that it's *technically* possible for China to divert an affordable percentage of its aluminium output over a decade to build a genuine planet-spanning power grid with 1Ω electrical resistance so you can have your mid-winter midnight electricity supplied by the mid-summer midday on the opposite side of the planet.
> and that nuclear power reactors can provide district heating and that
I have a heat pump. It works both ways, which means that unlike district heating, it also cools down the building in summer.
> that heat pumps sometimes fail in ways that the ozone depleting refrigerant to escape.
"Can" is also doing a lot of heavy lifting even if such things hadn't been banned.
> A mix of nuclear / hydroelectric / combined cycle gas turbine power plants provided ample electricity for end-users to make use of cheap to manufacture heating technology (resistive), low maintenance, low replacement costs.
Hydro is cheap, but nuclear isn't. Hydro also works as a buffer (and pumped hydro as storage), so if you're combining it with stuff anyway, may as well combine with PV. Even small-scale domestic rooftop PV (which is the most expensive PV) is cheaper than nuclear at this point, so cheap that it makes sense to use as a fencing material even if you never get around to using it for power generation.
Unless you can pay the workers the same rates, and it's politically acceptable to the electorate to use the same standards, this is as irrelevant as the fact (yes, I have done the maths on this) that it's *technically* possible for China to divert an affordable percentage of its aluminium output over a decade to build a genuine planet-spanning power grid with 1Ω electrical resistance so you can have your mid-winter midnight electricity supplied by the mid-summer midday on the opposite side of the planet.
> and that nuclear power reactors can provide district heating and that
I have a heat pump. It works both ways, which means that unlike district heating, it also cools down the building in summer.
> that heat pumps sometimes fail in ways that the ozone depleting refrigerant to escape.
Solved by banning such refrigerants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali_Amendment
"Can" is also doing a lot of heavy lifting even if such things hadn't been banned.
> A mix of nuclear / hydroelectric / combined cycle gas turbine power plants provided ample electricity for end-users to make use of cheap to manufacture heating technology (resistive), low maintenance, low replacement costs.
Hydro is cheap, but nuclear isn't. Hydro also works as a buffer (and pumped hydro as storage), so if you're combining it with stuff anyway, may as well combine with PV. Even small-scale domestic rooftop PV (which is the most expensive PV) is cheaper than nuclear at this point, so cheap that it makes sense to use as a fencing material even if you never get around to using it for power generation.