Japan’s ‍ambassador to Vietnam Naoki Ito told Reuters Japan had dropped out ⁠of plans to build a major nuclear power plant in Vietnam because the government’s goal of having it online by 2035 was too ambitious.

Chinh instructed officials to complete talks with Russia in January and find a new partner to replace Japan for the ‌second project, with the aim of having the two nuclear power plants online “after 2031,” the article said.

Vietnam, home to large manufacturing operations for multinationals including Samsung and Apple, has faced major power blackouts as demand from its huge industrial sector and expanding middle class often outpaces supplies. The power grid has ​also been ⁠strained by increasingly frequent extreme weather, such as droughts and typhoons. The country wants to increase electricity production ​from multiple sources, mostly renewables and gas, ​but ​projects have faced delays and uncertainty over regulatory and pricing issues.

If their major concern is getting enough power online quickly to mitigate current shortages, I wonder how practical it would be to interconnect to other nearby countries.

Also, does kinda make me wonder whether there’s a market for floating nuclear power plants. The issue with conventional nuclear power plants is the time to build them. But if you badly need more generation capacity in a given point and have a prebuilt one, you can move it wherever in the world demand is highest, and in pretty short order.