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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)
- look_lookatme 6y agoWhy is this article from 3 years ago on the front page?
- arkanciscan 6y agoSweet sweet karma points
- epistasis 6y agoThis article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction soldiers on and wings it. Then it al has to go through design review again. And maybe redone. Delays delays delays. Incompetence abounds. All the partners are planning from the beginning for a massive lawsuit at the end, and work harder to limit their liability (or create liability for others?) than to make the project work. Executives lie about the progress, there are guilty pleas to fraud: https://www.postandcourier.com/business/former-scana-executive-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-charges-tied-to-failed-sc-nuclear-project/article_26e23ca8-c50b-11ea-8377-e7b39854212b.html https://www.postandcourier.com/business/former-scana-executi... 20 years ago, I though nuclear was essential to fighting climate change. Today, I don't see how nuclear can ever help. We can't build it before it's too late, and by the time we build anything other technology has completely leapfrogged it. We started these two AP-1000 reactors in 2008! A dozen years later we have nothing to show for it except for bankruptcy, plea deals, billions of dollars that would have been more effectively spent on solar and storage.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYup. For all the people boosting nuclear power, the reality on the ground seems to be that it just does not work anymore. It's way too expensive and never gets done, and this problem is global, not just in the US; see e.g. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/france-nuclear-reactor-epr-expensive-mess/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... At some point the results have to speak for themselves, and solar/wind plus battery storage is actually working and being built. That seems a more realistic path forward than nuclear power, which is demonstrably failing over and over.
- api 6y agoNuclear is superior in some ways, but battery and renewable is small, can be incrementally built, simple, safe, and is experiencing exponential cost reductions due to mass production scaling. It reminds me of TSMC leapfrogging Intel because of mobile volume or PCs vs custom Unix workstations.
- magicsmoke 6y agoThe incremental build is probably a big part of it. More volume and minor failures = more practice time and experience. How does someone "practice" building a nuclear power plant when failure can be so catastrophic?
- api 6y agoOh yeah... it's hard to get industrial scaling of expertise, production tech, and hands on experience when you're building a few monuments. If we do make nuclear fission work it will be with modular reactors and standardized fuel form factors, etc. Fusion won't fly even if we get over unity fusion unless we adopt a similar approach. Fusion reactors like to be big, but I can see them being composed of mass producible smaller modules and parts. Settling on a standard design that can be mass produced could make it work. Thing is: as the nuclear people work to try to make anything above a reality, we are experiencing iterative rapid development in solar, wind, and batteries, with all of these getting geometrically cheaper until they approach the naked cost of the materials and the energy required to refine them... and the latter cost (energy) will drop as we get better at making these things. In the long term I would not be surprised if Earth is almost 100% solar/wind/hydro/geothermal powered. You might see nuclear used in niche markets that combine high population density with low insolation and insufficient other resources and where geopolitical concerns make reliance on long distance power transport problematic. Earth is pretty close to a giant free fusion reactor that we don't need to worry about maintaining for at least two billion years. Nuclear power will be for space settlements further from the sun and deep space travel. I could see Mars eventually relying on fusion in the far future. Mars is further from the sun, and most people who talk about settling there drastically underestimate the massive amounts of energy that will be needed to refine and purify literally every single material all the way down to the air and the water. The total energy footprint of your average Martian will be at least 10-20X your average Texan with a giant raised pickup and a 4000 square foot house.
- pstuart 6y agoI'm pro renewables but Asimov made an impact on how nuclear is the power of the future and it would be nice to have it in our portfolio. The only likelihood of nuclear power succeeding would be to containerize the reactors to ensure build quality, keep costs down, and to address scaling. A quick search hit this company that appears to be promoting this very thing: http://www.holosgen.com/ http://www.holosgen.com/
- toomuchtodo 6y agoNuclear is the future of power on Mars (containerized and launched on reliable person rated launch vehicles). It's clear we're not going to build it successfully on Earth, and that's okay. Renewables and batteries are faster and cheaper to build on Earth.
- epistasis 6y agoI think you are right, that the power of science fiction has clouded people's judgement of what the future will really be like. Today, I don't think we can consider nuclear a good or modern energy system when compared to something like solar or wind. Nuclear is used as a heat source to boil water and power a turbine, and throws away half of its thermal energy as waste. disposing of that waste heat is becoming so difficult that reactors in France power down in hot days. This is not some sort of super futuristic power source!! While small modular reactors are the only near term hope for nuclear, I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power. And fusion is no better until we have direct conversion or some other massive tech leap.
- CydeWeys 6y agoGood point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw with Fukushima, and all of that hot water being released wreaks havoc with riparian/marine ecosystems. Nuclear has downsides beyond the most obvious one, that of the risk of fallout. > I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power. Heh, it's even worse off-planet. If you think dumping the waste heat is hard when you have access to an atmosphere/large bodies of water, wait until you try it when you don't!! ;)
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoAnd the root of this is essentially politics keeping competent people from getting interested in nuclear. We can't do nuclear properly because society tells all the smart engineers and financiers that they should be doing other things. A lot of "boring things" suffer from this problem.
- epistasis 6y agoI don't think that's true. We had the same construction problems in the 70s when we wouldn't have had such a shortage. There are tons of super smart people working on nuclear startups right now, with big funding. It's all bad management, bad execution, and bad promises. And since few of any around the world have been able to keep construction promises recently, it may just be part of the natural variability of the construction process. And 2-3x variability is not a desirable trait for $10B projects, where most of the lifetime cost is in the upfront construction.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoYeah, you are right. The part that causes these projects to fail isn't the nuclear part. It's the construction part. You can't just take a construction crew that's used to building highways or skyscrapers and expect them to build a nuclear complex properly. This was the exact problem they had in the 70s, the contractors didn't understand why things had to be done a certain way, so they did it the way they thought it should be done. Then it turned out that the problems that many of the safety and operational issues that occurred later were due to not doing it properly in the first place. Nuclear is sexy, construction isn't. There is a great book on the history of the US nuclear power industry that goes into this called Beyond Engineering: How Technology Shapes Society. The technical issues were only a small part of why nuclear power is not more widely used. Countries like France that standardized on reactor design and had enough projects that construction crews could gain experience with the different processes and requirements involved were much more successful in deploying nuclear power.
- brandmeyer 6y ago> the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost I don't think this is just a nuclear problem. This is a civil engineering problem more broadly. IMO, the exact same forces which make nuclear impractical now are also responsible for the horrific budget explosions and overruns in big projects all over the US.
- epistasis 6y agoYes, I think you are right, and it's a damn shame because there are so many infrastructure projects that we desperately need: high speed rail, commuter trains, subways, inexpensive housing builds with high du/acre and walkable designs... My guess is that by the time we have regained any such capacity, renewable and storage will be cheaper than the thermodynamic process of harvesting heat and turning it into electricity; a process that has been hyper optimized for a century without much progress, and which has hit the wall of thermodynamics in efficiency. The only way to improve its cost would be far cheaper materials, a revolution which might happen with 3D printing, but which is super speculative today.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoWhile I think we need efficient housing designs, I don't think we need high speed rail and commuter trains in the US. As much of that functionality as possible should be replaced with internet connectivity. There is no reason to be spending enormous sums per mile when we can find ways to destroy demand for moving atoms instead of bits. The cheapest mile of high speed or commuter rails it the mile you didn't build. Efficient homes, renewables, ubiquitous internet connectivity, and electric vehicles are going to be your targets as people spend more time at their homes and the trips they make can be electrified. (the above comment is predicated on developing countries aging rapidly causing workers to leave the workforce, the quick uptake of remote work due to the pandemic forcing employers to learn how to support it, and data showing people fleeing cities for the suburbs and lower density living arrangements in general)
- ramshanker 6y agoI believe civil engineering part of nuclear reactor is it's easiest parts.
- zackees 6y agoWait until this guy finds out France is nearly all nuclear and did it at 1/10th the cost of solar and wind. Are people not able to do an internet search for this stuff? All this data is right out there in the open.
- dv_dt 6y agohttps://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/france-nuclear-reactor-epr-expensive-mess/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... France is going to retire end of life nuclear reactors and replace them with renewables, while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere. Including BTW, China, which did all the construction expertise management for nuclear that the experts recommend - e.g. using the same crews the build multiple reactors, moving them from project to project. China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables.
- wahern 6y ago> while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere Reactor, singular. They've only tried to build one new reactor this century, Flamanville #3. Civaux reactors were finished in 1997. As in the U.S., it's clear the cost issue is primarily related to public sentiment, not fundamentals. France's existing nuclear energy infrastructure was built at a time when France was very pro-nuclear, and nuclear was a matter of national pride, thus the gall to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Times have changed, for better (less investment in nuclear weapons, appetite for murdering civilians) and worse (less support for nuclear energy). > China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables. "China will build six to eight nuclear reactors a year between 2020 and 2025 and raise total capacity to 70 gigawatts (GW), up 43.5% compared to the end of May, the official China Daily said on Thursday, citing the country’s nuclear association." https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-build-6-8-nuclear-reactors-a-year-from-2020-2025-report-idINKBN24A0DL https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-b... Since 2011, over 30 reactors have come online, 3 of which began construction after Fukushima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
- ericcumbee 6y agoI live with in about 40 miles of Plant Vogtle and thats not really an accurate assessment. They have had to reshuffle some of the work due to COVID-19. but last I saw all of the major construction milestones on unit 3 are complete. its just down to ancillaries. Cold Hydro testing is slated to be conducted this fall and initial fuel loading by end of year. They are still on track for production to start Nov 2021 and 2022 for unit 4. https://allongeorgia.com/georgia-business/georgia-power-announces-resequencing-of-vogtle-units-3-4-planned-activities/ https://allongeorgia.com/georgia-business/georgia-power-anno...
- LanguageGamer 6y agoSomewhat tangential, but wikipedia has good article on the cost of different energy sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source The cost of nuclear energy has been flat for decades, but the cost of sources like solar has been plummeting. Nuclear doesn't have much of change without some technological break through.
- TrowthePlow 6y agoIsn't that basically the whole point of the recent ITER news? Swapping from fission to fusion and getting a 10x gain power in to out? I know it's been slow going and still will be, but it's still progress
- nabla9 6y agoNuclear and renewables are not 1:1 match or comparison. Nuclear provides steady source of electricity 24/7. If you want same from renewable, you must add the cost of energy storage and the cost of overcapacity.
- epistasis 6y agoSame for nuclear though, a steady source of power is not a good fit for our energy use. You have to start building thermal or battery storage, or do specialized more-expensive designs that can operate at variable power, or get customers to shift their load.
- danans 6y agoAnyone know of there is a connection beyond history and a logo between the nuclear power plant company and the household lighting company? http://www.westinghouselighting.com/ http://www.westinghouselighting.com/
- kn0where 6y agoThey used to be the same company: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corpor...
- thecal 6y agoCBS bought Westinghouse and began licensing out their name to all sorts of companies. I have a "Westinghouse" TV that is made by another company. That lighting company you linked appears to be an old family business that licenses the name as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corpora...
- HPsquared 6y agoTraditional light water reactors are pretty much dead at this point, they are not economic with the layers upon layers of required safety equipment. What's needed is simplification - there are a wide range of inherently / passively-safe Generation 4 designs - of which my particular interest is in the molten salt designs (e.g. Terrestrial Energy's Integral MSR) which could be made MUCH smaller, simpler and cheaper than traditional reactors. These might never clear the various financial, regulatory and technical hurdles, but one can hope...
- dang 6y agoDiscussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13987046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13987046