4 ms·

Honestly, I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Average cost overrun for US nuclear fission plants was 207 percent, primarily due to mid-construction re

by baking 7y ago

Honestly, I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Average cost overrun for US nuclear fission plants was 207 percent, primarily due to mid-construction revisions and additional regulation. [https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9133/05-02-nuclear.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/91x... page 17] But what you seem to be talking about are cost projections for proposed pilot plants. It is possible that commercial fusion plants will have construction cost overruns but most modern fission and fusion proposals incorporate modular construction to limit the problem of one-of cost overruns.

pfdietz 7y ago
> but most modern fission and fusion proposals incorporate modular construction to limit the problem of one-of cost overruns. Let's see how that works out, friends! "Modular by Design The AP1000 plant has been designed to make use of modern, modular-construction techniques. The design incorporates vendor-designed skids and equipment packages, as well as large, multi-ton structural modules and special-equipment modules. Modularization allows construction tasks that were traditionally performed in sequence to be completed in parallel." Oh dear. Modularization doesn't seem to have helped Westinghouse at all. Sorry about the bankruptcy, Toshiba!
- baking 7y ago
  Are you saying that fusion plants will face the same regulatory issues that fission plants experience? Again, I'm not sure what your point is.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    The problem wasn't regulation, it was mismanagement. The complexity of building the plant simply overwhelmed the firms involved. Fusion reactors would be even more complex. I think they're well beyond a practical upper bound for complexity of practical energy sources. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westinghouse-nucle-idUSKBN17Y0CQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin...
    - baking 7y ago
      What do you see as providing the majority of baseline load by 2060?
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        There will be no place for high levelized cost baseload generators. There will be intermittent sources, short term storage, and various chemical fuels (natural gas with carbon capture, biomass, hydrogen) for long term variability. Additionally, overproduction w. curtailment, dispatchable demand, and long distance transmission be used to ameliorate variability of supply. By 2060, or likely well before, if solar continues down its historical learning curve, solar should be absurdly cheap, so cheap that resistive heat will be cheaper than burning any fossil fuel. We might even see artificial geothermal, where excess power is just dumped into heating rocks and water underground.
        baking 7y ago
        Current PV factories can only provide about 15% of the total energy need if they run at maximum capacity over the next 40 years. (Maybe much less if panels need to be replaced every 20-30 years.) Since the existing factories are losing money, how can you increase the number of factories by a factor of seven or more and still get absurdly cheap PV cells? New factories will only be built if they can justify the capital expense. Yes PV cells will also get more efficient, but the problem of building all the factories to produce them and installing the low energy density solar farms, then storing the energy for daily and seasonal cycles and transmitting it to the population centers is a hugely wasteful process. Who is to say it is more practical than fusion. Spending a few billion to explore more economical ways to generate energy using one of the few methods that nature permits us seems like a drop in the bucket. If some optimists want to try it, good for them. Edit: Most of the expanded PV factory production will be best utilized for industrial processes, further limiting the amount of PV available to replace baseload. https://kavli.berkeley.edu/kavli-ensi-retreat-solar-energy-fuel-generation https://kavli.berkeley.edu/kavli-ensi-retreat-solar-energy-f...
        7y ago

by baking 7y ago

pfdietz 7y ago

> but most modern fission and fusion proposals incorporate modular construction to limit the problem of one-of cost overruns. Let's see how that works out, friends! "Modular by Design The AP1000 plant has been designed to make use of modern, modular-construction techniques. The design incorporates vendor-designed skids and equipment packages, as well as large, multi-ton structural modules and special-equipment modules. Modularization allows construction tasks that were traditionally performed in sequence to be completed in parallel." Oh dear. Modularization doesn't seem to have helped Westinghouse at all. Sorry about the bankruptcy, Toshiba!

baking 7y ago
Are you saying that fusion plants will face the same regulatory issues that fission plants experience? Again, I'm not sure what your point is.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  The problem wasn't regulation, it was mismanagement. The complexity of building the plant simply overwhelmed the firms involved. Fusion reactors would be even more complex. I think they're well beyond a practical upper bound for complexity of practical energy sources. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westinghouse-nucle-idUSKBN17Y0CQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin...
  - baking 7y ago
    What do you see as providing the majority of baseline load by 2060?
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      There will be no place for high levelized cost baseload generators. There will be intermittent sources, short term storage, and various chemical fuels (natural gas with carbon capture, biomass, hydrogen) for long term variability. Additionally, overproduction w. curtailment, dispatchable demand, and long distance transmission be used to ameliorate variability of supply. By 2060, or likely well before, if solar continues down its historical learning curve, solar should be absurdly cheap, so cheap that resistive heat will be cheaper than burning any fossil fuel. We might even see artificial geothermal, where excess power is just dumped into heating rocks and water underground.
      - baking 7y ago
        Current PV factories can only provide about 15% of the total energy need if they run at maximum capacity over the next 40 years. (Maybe much less if panels need to be replaced every 20-30 years.) Since the existing factories are losing money, how can you increase the number of factories by a factor of seven or more and still get absurdly cheap PV cells? New factories will only be built if they can justify the capital expense. Yes PV cells will also get more efficient, but the problem of building all the factories to produce them and installing the low energy density solar farms, then storing the energy for daily and seasonal cycles and transmitting it to the population centers is a hugely wasteful process. Who is to say it is more practical than fusion. Spending a few billion to explore more economical ways to generate energy using one of the few methods that nature permits us seems like a drop in the bucket. If some optimists want to try it, good for them. Edit: Most of the expanded PV factory production will be best utilized for industrial processes, further limiting the amount of PV available to replace baseload. https://kavli.berkeley.edu/kavli-ensi-retreat-solar-energy-fuel-generation https://kavli.berkeley.edu/kavli-ensi-retreat-solar-energy-f...
        7y ago