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France is able to produce 70% of their electricity through nuclear. Anyway, you do release the 40GWh electricity purchased would probably come from non-renewabl

France is able to produce 70% of their electricity through nuclear. Anyway, you do release the 40GWh electricity purchased would probably come from non-renewables.

epistasis 6y ago
France's efforts to come up with a new fleet to replace their current aging fleet have not been successful, they have had as much trouble as the US. They may be able to modify the EPR... but ever year that they fail to have a new more buildable design is another year that renewables and storage get cheaper while nuclear stays the same price or increases in price. I think if you want to bring up a nuclear success story, Canada would be far better. Their CANDU has been really successful, and they haven't yet tried to build a new generation of reactors so they haven't yet failed.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Unpack this for me please, they were able to build a fleet of reactors in the past, but no longer can? Is the new design worse, or unbuildable? Old reactors could not be beluilt today? People with all the skills have kicked the bucket?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    The new reactors that are permitted to be built, and that nuclear advocates stake safety claims on, are not economical, at least in the views of potential operators. The old reactors are the things nuclear advocates dismiss and say modern designs are better than on issues like safety and other concerns.
    - epistasis 6y ago
      I would also add that the word is very different Han 50 years ago. Some things have gotten very cheap, some things have stayed the same price. So the technology that looked good, theoretically, in 1970 may not have the same outlook in 2020. In particular, France's failing attempt is the EPR. There have been construction starts at three sites, and all have been massive off schedule. For the three not in China, they have been massively over budget. The build in China was the third to be started, but is the only one completed; planned construction time was 48 months, but it ended up taking twice as long. I don't know how to judge the pricing of construction in China, but if the Western world could do it in 8 years and at the stated cost of $7.5B, it would be a fantastic deal. What has changed since the last time? I don't know. Maybe different sorts of people go into the same jobs. Maybe executive culture is to blame. Maybe engineering culture is to blame. Maybe procurement and construction is to blame. Nobody has provided a solid explanation of X, Y, and Z with concrete examples. Some will say regulations are different and the cause, but at the same time nobody says that these are unnecessary regulations, or that there's a smarter path that would make them cheap, it's always just vague accusations without any specific call to action.
      - vilhelm_s 6y ago
        I mean, you began this thread by saying that they've added a new regulation on waste heat and nobody knows how to build a cooling system that satisfies it. Maybe we can begin by repealing that one and go from there...
        epistasis 6y ago
        We know how to build cooling towers. That's the $7B cost. Why would we remove a common sense environmental regulation, when we can build cheaper better things that have less environmental damage? Why the obsession with nuclear, at any cost? What is the benefit and gain when we have cheaper better alternatives? What was considered "cheap" in the 1980s is no longer the cheapest option. We have better, cheaper technologies. And on top of that the US can no longer build big things. We don't have construction management competence.
        cbmuser 6y ago
        Because renewables don’t help reduce emissions as much as nuclear does. Renewables need fossile backup plants. Go on electricitymap.org and see how Germany has among the highest emissions in the electricity sector in Europe despite 50% renewables in their electricity mix.
        roenxi 6y ago
        > when we can build cheaper better things that have less environmental damage? No we can't. The plans are to build nuclear plants that do exactly no environmental or social damage. Solar/wind/etc can't possibly compete to that standard. Try reliably isolating solar panel waste from the biosphere for even a century and see how much it costs. The figures would be too absurd to consider, which is why nobody is suggesting it. I'd be happy to go with the cheapest thing if everything was to the same standard; but solar seems to getting a free pass that nuclear isn't, because people care about having to evacuate an area but have no fear of heavy metals poisoning. For reasons that continue to baffle the rationalists.
        6y ago
    - Maakuth 6y ago
      For starters, all the old designs are built with analog automation which is no longer available, so at the very minimum, you need redesign the automation system. Keep in mind, every component you install will need to be certified and tracked from raw materials up to follow stated processes, which need to be nuclear safety certified too. And you need to have two separate families of parts so the requirement of diversity in implementation is fulfilled, to avoid coinciding typical failures. At least now that EPR projects are close to completion, there's now a precedent that it is even possible to implement digital automation in accordance to western nuclear safety standards. Also the mechanical safety standards are way stricter now, so you can't really just take an old design and add digital bus automation. You need more redundant safety systems, corium catcher and stuff. Not so easy.
      - cbmuser 6y ago
        Two EPRs have been running in China since 2018 in Taishan. It’s not a design problem, it’s a bureaucratic problem.
        Maakuth 6y ago
        Those are not under western safety regime.
        epistasis 6y ago
        China thought they could build them in 48 months, and it ended up taking more than twice as long. Is China planning any more EPRs? I can't find any evidence of them. I would agree that it's a bureaucratic problem, but it's a bureaucratic problem of the construction industries in all Western nations. And nobody can even figure out what exactly the problem is, or how to change it.
    - cbmuser 6y ago
      It’s not a fundamental problem with nuclear power as both China and Russia build new reactors safe and economically. The West just forgot how to build large projects.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > It’s not a fundamental problem with nuclear power as both China and Russia build new reactors safe and economically. Well, they've built them. Even unsafe nuclear plants (at least historically) are higher frequency of still-rare but potentially-catastrophic failures, not regular failures that are likely to be obvious after a handful of years of a small number of reactors being in operation, its far from clear that they do so safely. (And, since neither of these regimes favors transparency, its not like you can easily externally analytically assess likely safety, either, and even the economics before considering safety may be less clear than they superficially seem.) But, yes, getting things done that some currently-in-power faction would prefer is more complicatdd in systems in which the dominant faction is constrained by competing power bases rather than free to run roughshod over them. Though that's not something that has recently changed, its always been true, and those constraints have been a feature of the West for centuries, and most people in the West consider it a feature, not a bug; what is new in regard to nuclear power since the 1950s is that there are both more alternatives and more understanding that it has risks at all.
  - legulere 6y ago
    Construction costs have skyrocketed in developed countries in the last 60 years

France is able to produce 70% of their electricity through nuclear. Anyway, you do release the 40GWh electricity purchased would probably come from non-renewables.

epistasis 6y ago

France's efforts to come up with a new fleet to replace their current aging fleet have not been successful, they have had as much trouble as the US. They may be able to modify the EPR... but ever year that they fail to have a new more buildable design is another year that renewables and storage get cheaper while nuclear stays the same price or increases in price. I think if you want to bring up a nuclear success story, Canada would be far better. Their CANDU has been really successful, and they haven't yet tried to build a new generation of reactors so they haven't yet failed.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Unpack this for me please, they were able to build a fleet of reactors in the past, but no longer can? Is the new design worse, or unbuildable? Old reactors could not be beluilt today? People with all the skills have kicked the bucket?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  The new reactors that are permitted to be built, and that nuclear advocates stake safety claims on, are not economical, at least in the views of potential operators. The old reactors are the things nuclear advocates dismiss and say modern designs are better than on issues like safety and other concerns.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    I would also add that the word is very different Han 50 years ago. Some things have gotten very cheap, some things have stayed the same price. So the technology that looked good, theoretically, in 1970 may not have the same outlook in 2020. In particular, France's failing attempt is the EPR. There have been construction starts at three sites, and all have been massive off schedule. For the three not in China, they have been massively over budget. The build in China was the third to be started, but is the only one completed; planned construction time was 48 months, but it ended up taking twice as long. I don't know how to judge the pricing of construction in China, but if the Western world could do it in 8 years and at the stated cost of $7.5B, it would be a fantastic deal. What has changed since the last time? I don't know. Maybe different sorts of people go into the same jobs. Maybe executive culture is to blame. Maybe engineering culture is to blame. Maybe procurement and construction is to blame. Nobody has provided a solid explanation of X, Y, and Z with concrete examples. Some will say regulations are different and the cause, but at the same time nobody says that these are unnecessary regulations, or that there's a smarter path that would make them cheap, it's always just vague accusations without any specific call to action.
    - vilhelm_s 6y ago
      I mean, you began this thread by saying that they've added a new regulation on waste heat and nobody knows how to build a cooling system that satisfies it. Maybe we can begin by repealing that one and go from there...
      - epistasis 6y ago
        We know how to build cooling towers. That's the $7B cost. Why would we remove a common sense environmental regulation, when we can build cheaper better things that have less environmental damage? Why the obsession with nuclear, at any cost? What is the benefit and gain when we have cheaper better alternatives? What was considered "cheap" in the 1980s is no longer the cheapest option. We have better, cheaper technologies. And on top of that the US can no longer build big things. We don't have construction management competence.
        cbmuser 6y ago
        Because renewables don’t help reduce emissions as much as nuclear does. Renewables need fossile backup plants. Go on electricitymap.org and see how Germany has among the highest emissions in the electricity sector in Europe despite 50% renewables in their electricity mix.
        roenxi 6y ago
        > when we can build cheaper better things that have less environmental damage? No we can't. The plans are to build nuclear plants that do exactly no environmental or social damage. Solar/wind/etc can't possibly compete to that standard. Try reliably isolating solar panel waste from the biosphere for even a century and see how much it costs. The figures would be too absurd to consider, which is why nobody is suggesting it. I'd be happy to go with the cheapest thing if everything was to the same standard; but solar seems to getting a free pass that nuclear isn't, because people care about having to evacuate an area but have no fear of heavy metals poisoning. For reasons that continue to baffle the rationalists.
        6y ago
  - Maakuth 6y ago
    For starters, all the old designs are built with analog automation which is no longer available, so at the very minimum, you need redesign the automation system. Keep in mind, every component you install will need to be certified and tracked from raw materials up to follow stated processes, which need to be nuclear safety certified too. And you need to have two separate families of parts so the requirement of diversity in implementation is fulfilled, to avoid coinciding typical failures. At least now that EPR projects are close to completion, there's now a precedent that it is even possible to implement digital automation in accordance to western nuclear safety standards. Also the mechanical safety standards are way stricter now, so you can't really just take an old design and add digital bus automation. You need more redundant safety systems, corium catcher and stuff. Not so easy.
    - cbmuser 6y ago
      Two EPRs have been running in China since 2018 in Taishan. It’s not a design problem, it’s a bureaucratic problem.
      - Maakuth 6y ago
        Those are not under western safety regime.
      - epistasis 6y ago
        China thought they could build them in 48 months, and it ended up taking more than twice as long. Is China planning any more EPRs? I can't find any evidence of them. I would agree that it's a bureaucratic problem, but it's a bureaucratic problem of the construction industries in all Western nations. And nobody can even figure out what exactly the problem is, or how to change it.
  - cbmuser 6y ago
    It’s not a fundamental problem with nuclear power as both China and Russia build new reactors safe and economically. The West just forgot how to build large projects.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It’s not a fundamental problem with nuclear power as both China and Russia build new reactors safe and economically. Well, they've built them. Even unsafe nuclear plants (at least historically) are higher frequency of still-rare but potentially-catastrophic failures, not regular failures that are likely to be obvious after a handful of years of a small number of reactors being in operation, its far from clear that they do so safely. (And, since neither of these regimes favors transparency, its not like you can easily externally analytically assess likely safety, either, and even the economics before considering safety may be less clear than they superficially seem.) But, yes, getting things done that some currently-in-power faction would prefer is more complicatdd in systems in which the dominant faction is constrained by competing power bases rather than free to run roughshod over them. Though that's not something that has recently changed, its always been true, and those constraints have been a feature of the West for centuries, and most people in the West consider it a feature, not a bug; what is new in regard to nuclear power since the 1950s is that there are both more alternatives and more understanding that it has risks at all.
- legulere 6y ago
  Construction costs have skyrocketed in developed countries in the last 60 years