It isn't just the reactor that is over-specced - anything to do with nuclear is held to a much higher standard than anything else, relative to the actual risks.

Thorium molten salt reactors have been bandied around for a while, especially in India due to necessity, but I fully expect governments to still make unrealistic demands of them, and therefore drive them up to unrealistic prices.

Stuff like this depresses me - I don't see how politics can handle grown-up conversations about trade-offs like this when people will just vote in the cake-and-eat-it parties.