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Construction projects are inherently unpredictable, because it's building something large, bespoke, and in constantly varying conditions. Nuclear plants are ver

Construction projects are inherently unpredictable, because it's building something large, bespoke, and in constantly varying conditions. Nuclear plants are very complex, so that obviously raises the level of unpredictability. Every manufactured object has an insanely long and convoluted dependency chain, where each link is subject to disappearance due to factors completely out of your control. Especially objects that require special or unusual parts. Then there's actually building the thing, which can go wrong for a million reasons before you've even reached the grand and rolling lands of human error.

roenxi 6y ago
Article says: "However, the BBC understands that the fact Sizewell C is a carbon copy of Hinkley - which has seen work on a second reactor there completed 30% more quickly than the first - is thought to have substantially mitigated that risk." It sounds like it should be pretty easy to budget for this plant. Plans are allowed to include a 20% "we don't know what this is going to be spent on but something will come up" for surprises.
pfdietz 6y ago
> Construction projects are inherently unpredictable And yet, renewable projects typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Offshore windfarms cost billions. A 10% overspend is quite significant.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Much better than a 300% overspend. Any renewable project that is going in that direction would be cancelled. Not only are renewables easier to build in small modules, but the staged build-out allows any problems (like, bad cost estimates) to be identified and fixed (or aborted). The modular nature of renewables also allows them to be much more resilient in the face of component failure, or in face of construction errors (with the exception of common mode design failures). This means they can be installed with less skilled labor that makes more mistakes. Renewable fields are akin to server farms w. large numbers of replaceable blades. Nuclear plants are like mainframes.
- imtringued 6y ago
  If each solar farm consisted of one giant solar panel I'm sure we would see exactly the same problem. In reality building a solar farm involves redoing one simple step over and over again. It's much easier to scale up.

roenxi 6y ago

Article says: "However, the BBC understands that the fact Sizewell C is a carbon copy of Hinkley - which has seen work on a second reactor there completed 30% more quickly than the first - is thought to have substantially mitigated that risk." It sounds like it should be pretty easy to budget for this plant. Plans are allowed to include a 20% "we don't know what this is going to be spent on but something will come up" for surprises.

pfdietz 6y ago

> Construction projects are inherently unpredictable And yet, renewable projects typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.

onion2k 6y ago
Offshore windfarms cost billions. A 10% overspend is quite significant.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Much better than a 300% overspend. Any renewable project that is going in that direction would be cancelled. Not only are renewables easier to build in small modules, but the staged build-out allows any problems (like, bad cost estimates) to be identified and fixed (or aborted). The modular nature of renewables also allows them to be much more resilient in the face of component failure, or in face of construction errors (with the exception of common mode design failures). This means they can be installed with less skilled labor that makes more mistakes. Renewable fields are akin to server farms w. large numbers of replaceable blades. Nuclear plants are like mainframes.
imtringued 6y ago
If each solar farm consisted of one giant solar panel I'm sure we would see exactly the same problem. In reality building a solar farm involves redoing one simple step over and over again. It's much easier to scale up.