4 ms·

The person I replied to said they're not buildable. This is logically false because we've been able to build them. There's no dichotomy here, just an invalid ar

by cmehdy 6y ago

The person I replied to said they're not buildable. This is logically false because we've been able to build them. There's no dichotomy here, just an invalid argument. And science isn't just a game of randoms. We know full well how to build nuclear power plants, let's not play mysticism about it..

epistasis 6y ago
I'm thinking about "buildable" in terms of how an agent that would construct it thinks: if I spend X amount of money will I have anything to show for it? In the US, the percentage of build failures has been too high for any utility or merchant generators to stomach the risk. So the existence of new reactors is not sufficient to define "buildable." The existence frequency of failed builds is what scares off new projects, and what makes them "unbuildable." Which also points to another difficulty with build ability: even if Rosatom or China or South Korea have figured out a way to build with a high success rate, that doesn't mean that it will translates to a different build crew and culture. We would have to see a string of probable 5 successes in a row in the US before a utility exec would consider risking their entire company on a new nuclear power plant. Too many gigantic companies have been destroyed in the attempt. There's a hilarious video of a SCANA (I think?) exec delivering blisteringly sarcastic remarks about the possibility of somebody else being able to pick up the pieces of their failed AP-1000 build. Nuclear is a career killer and a corporation killer in the US. It's likely that many execs in South Carolina will end up in jail for the stuff they did to try to keep the build going. And this is from people that have none of the safety or environmental concerns about nuclear. It's purely economic and "can I ever build this thing and will it destroy the company I lead."
- cmehdy 6y ago
  So you're thinking "buildable" in terms of short-term market when nuclear power is the kind of thing built to operate on the scale of a century (and really gives financial returns only when you look over many decades), ESPECIALLY because the initial capital invested is the only real cost and most of the energy income from nuclear power plants has to go back towards investors at a typical 10% (if governments don't step up to do it themselves at much lower interests), exactly because the market is expecting returns NOW. This is a problem of framing you've got there, because by definition pretty much all the actions taken on markets have short-sightedness in mind, and at the very least nowhere near a century-long vision. The existence of reactors AND the fact that they are being built RIGHT NOW is enough to define buildable. That you don't WANT to build them is an entirely different problem, and again it is motivated by the fact that incorrect information is constantly being thrown at nuclear (even in countries where it once was a major thing to build new reactors, i.e. France) and that this information trickles down into the way people drive their representatives (politicians) towards short-sightedness.
  - 7952 6y ago
    That last paragraph must be a brilliant excuse to use. * Boss - So why did the reactor vessel produce cracks? * Engineer - Oh well, long standing misinformation being thrown at the industry. * Boss - what has that got to do with my reactor vessel. * Engineer - Err well, the craft was lost due to a lack of ongoing projects. * Boss - But I though this was just science? * Engineer - When I said that "we" know how to do this I was talking about humanity in general. You can make any problem the fault of politics if you try hard enough. But it is hopelessly reductive.
    - cmehdy 6y ago
      Engineers don't have a say in whether things get built or not. Politics do, because politics are expressed through representatives of the people and people do. Yes you can make any problem a problem of politics because that's EXACTLY how things get solved: people legislate, and things are made legal, illegal, decriminalized, mandated, budgets are voted, etc. I understand that some people can misinterpret the data about nuclear and have a perception of danger, but to say that nuclear can't be built because it is advanced engineering is as absurd as saying that a tower can't be built because it is advanced engineering. You've been proven wrong literally hundreds of times, and you still cling on to the idea that the thing can't be built?! To say that it can't be built because people don't want to build them at that cost and that it's "just it", is a very very convenient way to dilute the lack of will and foresight into this abstract beast called "the market", a beast that I will repeat once again is absolutely short-sighted (you definitely give no shit about getting a ROI on the order of a century unless perhaps you're Gates or Buffett) and ultimately it is a MUCH bigger cop-out than to say that this is about political will. Because at least political will is about all of us learning about the issues and expressing our will, not about some magical elves deciding to invest hundreds of millions into long-term schemes they won't directly benefit from.

by cmehdy 6y ago

epistasis 6y ago

I'm thinking about "buildable" in terms of how an agent that would construct it thinks: if I spend X amount of money will I have anything to show for it? In the US, the percentage of build failures has been too high for any utility or merchant generators to stomach the risk. So the existence of new reactors is not sufficient to define "buildable." The existence frequency of failed builds is what scares off new projects, and what makes them "unbuildable." Which also points to another difficulty with build ability: even if Rosatom or China or South Korea have figured out a way to build with a high success rate, that doesn't mean that it will translates to a different build crew and culture. We would have to see a string of probable 5 successes in a row in the US before a utility exec would consider risking their entire company on a new nuclear power plant. Too many gigantic companies have been destroyed in the attempt. There's a hilarious video of a SCANA (I think?) exec delivering blisteringly sarcastic remarks about the possibility of somebody else being able to pick up the pieces of their failed AP-1000 build. Nuclear is a career killer and a corporation killer in the US. It's likely that many execs in South Carolina will end up in jail for the stuff they did to try to keep the build going. And this is from people that have none of the safety or environmental concerns about nuclear. It's purely economic and "can I ever build this thing and will it destroy the company I lead."

cmehdy 6y ago
So you're thinking "buildable" in terms of short-term market when nuclear power is the kind of thing built to operate on the scale of a century (and really gives financial returns only when you look over many decades), ESPECIALLY because the initial capital invested is the only real cost and most of the energy income from nuclear power plants has to go back towards investors at a typical 10% (if governments don't step up to do it themselves at much lower interests), exactly because the market is expecting returns NOW. This is a problem of framing you've got there, because by definition pretty much all the actions taken on markets have short-sightedness in mind, and at the very least nowhere near a century-long vision. The existence of reactors AND the fact that they are being built RIGHT NOW is enough to define buildable. That you don't WANT to build them is an entirely different problem, and again it is motivated by the fact that incorrect information is constantly being thrown at nuclear (even in countries where it once was a major thing to build new reactors, i.e. France) and that this information trickles down into the way people drive their representatives (politicians) towards short-sightedness.
- 7952 6y ago
  That last paragraph must be a brilliant excuse to use. * Boss - So why did the reactor vessel produce cracks? * Engineer - Oh well, long standing misinformation being thrown at the industry. * Boss - what has that got to do with my reactor vessel. * Engineer - Err well, the craft was lost due to a lack of ongoing projects. * Boss - But I though this was just science? * Engineer - When I said that "we" know how to do this I was talking about humanity in general. You can make any problem the fault of politics if you try hard enough. But it is hopelessly reductive.
  - cmehdy 6y ago
    Engineers don't have a say in whether things get built or not. Politics do, because politics are expressed through representatives of the people and people do. Yes you can make any problem a problem of politics because that's EXACTLY how things get solved: people legislate, and things are made legal, illegal, decriminalized, mandated, budgets are voted, etc. I understand that some people can misinterpret the data about nuclear and have a perception of danger, but to say that nuclear can't be built because it is advanced engineering is as absurd as saying that a tower can't be built because it is advanced engineering. You've been proven wrong literally hundreds of times, and you still cling on to the idea that the thing can't be built?! To say that it can't be built because people don't want to build them at that cost and that it's "just it", is a very very convenient way to dilute the lack of will and foresight into this abstract beast called "the market", a beast that I will repeat once again is absolutely short-sighted (you definitely give no shit about getting a ROI on the order of a century unless perhaps you're Gates or Buffett) and ultimately it is a MUCH bigger cop-out than to say that this is about political will. Because at least political will is about all of us learning about the issues and expressing our will, not about some magical elves deciding to invest hundreds of millions into long-term schemes they won't directly benefit from.