Very concretely this means that China is developing nuclear anywhere between 3 to 7 times cheaper than comparable projects abroad, which is an insane advantage. For instance, the Hinkley Point C project in the UK is now estimated to cost $43 billion for just 3.2 GW of capacity (reuters.com/business/energy/…). These 10 new nuclear projects in China will together cost 40% less ($27 billion) for approximately 4 times the capacity (about 12 GW), which works out to them being about 6 times cheaper. The comparison with the United States is even more dramatic. The Plant Vogtle expansion in Georgia, which finally completed its second unit in April 2024, represents the only new nuclear construction in the US in decades. Originally estimated to cost $14 billion with completion by 2017, the final price tag ballooned to approximately $37 billion for two AP1000 reactors with a combined capacity of 2.2 GW (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle…) This works out to an astounding $16.6 billion per gigawatt - nearly 7 times more expensive than Chinese nuclear construction. Put another way, while China will build 10 reactors (approximately 12 GW) for $27.4 billion, the US spent $10 billion more than that for just 2 reactors with one-fifth of the generating capacity. Looking at construction build times is also pretty crazy: Chinese nuclear plants are consistently completed in 5-7 years. For example, Fuqing Unit 5, the first Hualong One reactor, began construction in May 2015 and entered commercial operation in January 2021 - taking just 68 months (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangch…). Fangchenggang Unit 3, another Hualong One reactor, started construction in December 2015 and was connected to the grid in January 2023, taking about 7 years despite pandemic delays (world-nuclear.org/informatio…) Even more impressive, China is planning to reduce construction times further with the next generation Hualong Two design, which aims to cut construction time from 5 years to just 4 years (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclea…) This means the build times are approximately 2 to 4 times faster than comparable projects in the West. Hinkley Point C in the UK is projected to take over 13 years (2017-2030) and the Vogtle project in the US took 15 years to complete (2009-2024). So to summarize, very concretely China is building nuclear plants 2 to 4 times faster than the West and 3 to 7 times cheaper. And the same type of efficiency differential applies (and is actually even more dramatic) for other forms of energy generation. As the saying goes "industry is energy transformed": when you have such a huge efficiency gap in energy infrastructure development, it compounds throughout your economy, giving Chinese companies an immense competitive edge that's likely to perdure for generations. Think about AI for instance. Sam Altman recently admitted, in a rare moment of clarity, that "eventually, the cost of AI will converge to the cost of energy" (xitter.cf/vitrupo/status/1920883…). Which by definition means that the country that will have a long-term competitive advantage in AI is the one with the cheapest energy. This, at heart, is the so-called "China threat": not military expansion but the ability to deliver strategic infrastructure at a fraction of the time and cost required in the West, which not only gives China immense domestic economic advantages but also ultimately global economic influence. If you're say Brazil or Indonesia, would you rather partner with Western companies charging 3-7x more and taking twice as long to build your energy infrastructure, or go with Chinese firms that can deliver the same results faster and dramatically cheaper? The economic calculus is inescapable, regardless of political considerations. The West can talk all they want about "countering the BRI" or other similar initiatives to compete with China but ultimately, unless they address this immense efficiency differential, all they have are mere words.