←back to thread

129 points mpweiher | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
DarkNova6 ◴[] No.46247903[source]
So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.

Look, I love nuclear technology. But time has moved on. The costs to rebuild this industry is astronomical and means we lose out on key-future technology like batteries.

Edit: But then there are bombs. And especially French love their nukes due national security. This is the only reason to keep pushing for nuclear, since Russia, the US and China are not gonna change direction on this either. But the very least we could do is be honest about it.

Edit 2: Changed from "World has moved on" to "time has moved on", since evidently China has invested for a good 2 decades to build their own fully functional nuclear-industry. Proving my point that it takes dedicated investment, network effects and scale to rebuild this industry. After all, they too want to mass produce nukes.

replies(9): >>46247968 #>>46248061 #>>46248083 #>>46248299 #>>46248343 #>>46248710 #>>46249288 #>>46250139 #>>46253448 #
nixass ◴[] No.46247968[source]
> Look, I love nuclear technology. But the world has moved on.

Come again?

replies(3): >>46248065 #>>46248457 #>>46249052 #
iknowstuff ◴[] No.46248065[source]
We deploy 10x the capacity in renewables and batteries than we do in nuclear and its only accelerating. We are trending towards 1/10th the cost of nuclear per GW. There is no going back just due to the sheer scale of mass manufacturing renewables.

We are below $1B/GW for solar. China just opened a $100/kWh ($100M/GWh) battery storage plant. All deployable within a year.

Contrast this to $16B/GW for recent nuclear plants, and you don’t benefit from starting a build for another 20 years

replies(7): >>46248071 #>>46248107 #>>46248327 #>>46248605 #>>46248641 #>>46248755 #>>46249261 #
1. solarengineer ◴[] No.46248605[source]
I am a small-time investor in renewable energy businesses, but I am also a believer in nuclear energy.

Consider a city like Mumbai that needs about 3.8 GW per day. One would need lots of windmills and large solar farms that would need to be positioned in a different state having more sunlight throughout the year. Mumbai often experiences cloudy weather and intermittent wind. I cannot imagine only wind and solar supporting the needs of Mumbai.

There are countries other than the US who do not take 20 years to build a reactor. Out-dated regulations, punitive paperwork, and perhaps poor project management are the reasons for the oft-cited delays in the US. Other countries complete their builds in 6 to 7 years. https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...

replies(1): >>46249367 #
2. mpweiher ◴[] No.46249367[source]
The US delays with the Vogtle AP-1000s (the only recently completed US build) were extremely atypical.

First, it was a FOAK design. Which always takes longer to build, it is a prototype.

Second, the nuclear build know how in the nuclear engineers, construction workers, and supply chain was not really there any longer.

Third, they used a new permitting system, which in theory should have been better and probably will be better in the future: instead of ongoing individual checks and modifications, which made every nuclear power plant in the US a unique unicorn, you are now allowed to submit a master design and once approved you can build that over and over. Without changes.

Alas, Westinghouse wasn't actually done with the design when they submitted. So when they started building, they noticed that they had submitted plans that could not actually be built. Oops. That cause massive delays. And delays = cost.

And the suppliers fought each other, one went bankrupt etc. COVID also didn't help.

So how can we guarantee that the same won't happen in the future and that NOAK builds will be better? Well, for one they now have plans that are obviously buildable, because a bunch of AP-1000s have been built. So that exact thing absolutely can't happen.

Also, we can look to China. Turns out, China also built 2 FOAK AP-1000s. These also took about 10 years, despite China usually building in 5. And it turns out, China built some more AP-1000s after that. NOAK builds. And these took 5 years to build with buildable plans, experience building that reactors and a mature nuclear industry to back them.

So there is good reason to believe that future NOAK builds of the AP-1000 and of comparable reactors will be much faster and much cheaper than what we've seen so far.

replies(1): >>46250312 #
3. _aavaa_ ◴[] No.46250312[source]
> were extremely atypical.

Delays and cost overruns for nuclear are absolutely not atypical. Pick anywhere in the world you want and you’ll find them building reactors easy 50% over time and budget, and many >100%.

replies(1): >>46250727 #
4. solarengineer ◴[] No.46250727{3}[source]
Someone did the homework on the time that it takes (Japan does it in 5 years): https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

One observation is that Small Modular Reactors could take much less time: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/i/111356564/modular-...

Edited to add: China estimates 10 new reactors at 27 billion in total: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...