The AI Investment Boom

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41860341

Basically, nuclear fission is clean baseload power. Wind and solar are not baseload power sources. They don't really compete. See discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858892

Furthermore, we're seeing interest (from Google and Amazon and Dow Chemical) in expensive but completely safe TRISO (HALEU) reactors (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/triso-particles-most-robu...). These companies want clean baseload power, with no risk of meltdown, and they're willing to pay for it. Here's what Amazon has chosen: https://x-energy.com/fuel/triso-x

TRISO (HALEU) reactors use more than 1.5 times the natural uranium per unit of energy produced because the higher burnup is offset by higher enrichment inputs (see page 11 at https://fuelcycleoptions.inl.gov/SiteAssets/SitePages/Home/1...), and the fuel is even more expensive to manufacture, but they are completely safe. This is a technology from the 1960's but it's attractive now because so much money is chasing clean baseload nuclear fission for data centers.

These "impossible to melt down" TRISO small modular nuclear fission reactors are what Elon Musk was talking about on the campaign trail last week, when he said:

  ELON MUSK: "The dangers of nuclear power are greatly
  overstated. You can make a nuclear reactor that is
  literally impossible to melt down even if you tried to
  melt it down. You could try to bomb the place, and it
  still wouldn't melt down. There should be no regulatory
  issues with that. There should be significant nuclear 
  reform."

The US has zero commercial reactors under construction and this is for one reason: economics.

The recent announcements from the hyperscalers are PPAs. If the company building the reactor can provide power at the agreed price they will take it off their hands. Thus creating a more stable financial environment to get funding.

They are not investing anything on their own. For a recent example NuScale another SMR developer essentially collapsed when their Utah deal fell through when nice renders and PowerPoints met real world costs and deadlines. [2]

[1]: https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...

[2]: https://iceberg-research.com/2023/10/19/nuscale-power-smr-a-...

This means you don't understand how the grid works. California's baseload is ~15 GW while it peaks at 50 GW.

New built nuclear power is wholly unsuitable for load following duty due to the economics. It is an insane prospect when running at 100% 24/7, and even worse when it has to adapt.

Both nuclear power and renewables need storage, flexibility or other measures to match their inflexibility to the grid.

See the recent study where it was found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables, due to both options requiring dispatchable power to meet the grid load.

> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources. However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour. For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

> These companies want clean baseload power, with no risk of meltdown, and they're willing to pay for it. Here's what Amazon has chosen

The recent announcements from the hyperscalers are PPAs. If the company building the reactor can provide power at the agreed price they will take it off their hands. Thus creating a more stable financial environment to get funding.

They are not investing anything on their own. For a recent example NuScale another SMR developer essentially collapsed when their Utah deal fell through when nice renders and PowerPoints met real world costs and deadlines.

https://iceberg-research.com/2023/10/19/nuscale-power-smr-a-...

> with no risk of meltdown

Then we should be able to remove the enormous subsidy the Price Anderson act adds to the industry right? Let all new reactors buy insurance for a Fukushima level accident in the open market.

Nuclear powerplants are currently insured for ~0.05% of the cost of a Fukushima style accident and pooled together the entire US industry covers less than 5%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

I'm on PG&E, I wish I could get my electricity for only $0.14/kWh

From what I’ve understood PG&E’s largest problem is the massive payouts and infrastructure upgrades needed from the wildfires, not the cost of the electricity itself.

For Europe overall is 22%.

For modern nuclear power the only nuclear reactor under construction in France is Flamanville 3 which is 6x over budget and 12 years late on a 6 year construction timeline.

Hinkley Point C in the UK is in a similar quagmire and Olkiluoto 3 finally got finished last year after a near 20 year construction timeline.

Politically there's some noise from conservative politicians who can't hold a climate change denial position anymore, but still need to be contrarians.

The problem is the horrendous economics.