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But if subsequent plants are built with same drawings, you don't have a design engineering firm having to create that work from scratch. Should that alone not

by giarc 6y ago

But if subsequent plants are built with same drawings, you don't have a design engineering firm having to create that work from scratch. Should that alone not save money?

giantg2 6y ago
Not when those original plans and designs are 30-60 years old. We have newer reactor designs, materials, and engineering knowledge today that could significantly reduce cost just in material savings or construction time.using something like FAST reactor, is significantly different that the older tech and could save 90% on fuel and waste.
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  The reactors being built today are Gen III/Gen III+ designs: AP-1000, the EPR, VVER-1200/ AES-2006, APR1400, etc. These include all the design and engineering refinements we've been able to cram in. They're a far cry from 30-60 year old tech. Unfortunately most of the new reactors built in the US and Europe have run massively over time and over budget, despite new technology. Vogtle 3&4 in Georgia drove Westinghouse bankrupt. These were modern AP-1000 models. Flamanville 3 in France (an EPR) is running nearly triple its cost estimate and the delivery time ballooned to 15 years. Olkiluoto in Finland (the first EPR) went massively over time and budget as well. These reactors were specifically designed to be more cost-effective and promised much lower prices, but failed to deliver. The problem in the nuclear industry isn't the technology itself, but the fact that they consistently fail to deliver projects within their allotted time and budget. Unfortunately this shows no signs of changing, and renewable energy industry looks poised to completely out-compete them in the energy market. I say this all as someone that used to have high hopes for nuclear tech, after working in nuclear physics research all throughout university.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    They may be gen3 and gen3+ and newer designs, but they are still just working on the old regular fission model. I'm talking about using breeder or FAST reactors, which are completely different in the underlying physics. So far I believe there haven't been any of those built commercially but have been in testing for 60 years without issue.
    - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
      There's a reason countries don't build breeder reactors. Fuel costs are a tiny fraction of the costs for a nuclear powerplant: less than 10%. Breeders save a bit of money on fuel in exchange for a higher capital cost (cost of construction). For reactors, capital costs are a huge factor because reactors are extremely expensive already ($8-10Bn per reactor in the US/Europe). Increasing that further more than balances the savings on fuel. Thus, breeders generally end up being more expensive than a conventional BWR or PWR. Here I should mention that I spent some time in nuclear physics research. There's a lot of misinformation floating around about nuclear energy. Most of the "miracle solutions" don't live up to their promises (especially thorium tech and breeders). If they did, we'd already be using them -- nuclear engineers are not fools, and most of these reactor concepts have been kicked around for literally decades. One other point: the physics behind breeders and conventional slow-neutron reactors isn't fundamentally different. Both neutron capture ("breeding") and fission ("burning") reactions happen in both, the ratios in a breeder are just optimized to favor the first process more. In fact in conventional light water reactors, around a third of the energy released comes from fissile isotope bred from fertile isotopes such as U-238.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        With the newer breeders (FAST), the main difference is safety. You don't need the same control mechanisms because they automatically cool down due to the physics of them so that they don't melt down. I'd imagine that FAST reactors eliminating the need for ever increasing safety tech and complexity of it for conventional reactors would be a cost savings (or at least make it close). Not to mention the clean up costs when you compare to a conventional reactor that could melt down, even if it's rare. I'm not saying that the engineers are idiots. But there are some engineers (supported by government or corporate funds) still building new prototypes and testing new designs, such as FAST. Especially in the US, a driving reason that new designs aren't used is that there have been few built I'm recent decades - partially due to lower cost alternatives and also due to public opinion.
        stjohnswarts 6y ago
mikeyouse 6y ago
Depends so much on siting too.. a lot of assumptions on foundations and water handling are baked into plans and even if the reactor room is the same size, you’re going to need an engineering firm comfortable with signing off on a nuke plant run the math based on the new soil composition and 500-year storm rainfalls, etc.
lumost 6y ago
Like any engineering activity it'll depend on how much knowledge of the design the engineering team has. If it's not the same engineering and regulatory teams - then there will be a lot of risk in certifying the plant, little reward, and I'd expect every design decision to be expensively questioned. Not to mention the hundreds of small decisions related to "X part supplier went out of business. Y part is similar with a slightly different alloy and mechanical properties, is it a suitable replacement? how can we verify this?" The original design teams would have auxiliary artifacts that were vetted, and tribal knowledge to help quickly answer these questions. Subsequent design teams will not. The timescales between plant construction exceeds most engineer's memory at 5-10 years.
cratermoon 6y ago
Except that when a safety problem is found with a plant design, you can't just build more from the same blueprint, you have to both refit the older plants with the mitigation and redesign subsequent plants with the fix, so now you're building a new design.

by giarc 6y ago

But if subsequent plants are built with same drawings, you don't have a design engineering firm having to create that work from scratch. Should that alone not save money?

giantg2 6y ago

Not when those original plans and designs are 30-60 years old. We have newer reactor designs, materials, and engineering knowledge today that could significantly reduce cost just in material savings or construction time.using something like FAST reactor, is significantly different that the older tech and could save 90% on fuel and waste.

CogentHedgehog 6y ago
The reactors being built today are Gen III/Gen III+ designs: AP-1000, the EPR, VVER-1200/ AES-2006, APR1400, etc. These include all the design and engineering refinements we've been able to cram in. They're a far cry from 30-60 year old tech. Unfortunately most of the new reactors built in the US and Europe have run massively over time and over budget, despite new technology. Vogtle 3&4 in Georgia drove Westinghouse bankrupt. These were modern AP-1000 models. Flamanville 3 in France (an EPR) is running nearly triple its cost estimate and the delivery time ballooned to 15 years. Olkiluoto in Finland (the first EPR) went massively over time and budget as well. These reactors were specifically designed to be more cost-effective and promised much lower prices, but failed to deliver. The problem in the nuclear industry isn't the technology itself, but the fact that they consistently fail to deliver projects within their allotted time and budget. Unfortunately this shows no signs of changing, and renewable energy industry looks poised to completely out-compete them in the energy market. I say this all as someone that used to have high hopes for nuclear tech, after working in nuclear physics research all throughout university.
- giantg2 6y ago
  They may be gen3 and gen3+ and newer designs, but they are still just working on the old regular fission model. I'm talking about using breeder or FAST reactors, which are completely different in the underlying physics. So far I believe there haven't been any of those built commercially but have been in testing for 60 years without issue.
  - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
    There's a reason countries don't build breeder reactors. Fuel costs are a tiny fraction of the costs for a nuclear powerplant: less than 10%. Breeders save a bit of money on fuel in exchange for a higher capital cost (cost of construction). For reactors, capital costs are a huge factor because reactors are extremely expensive already ($8-10Bn per reactor in the US/Europe). Increasing that further more than balances the savings on fuel. Thus, breeders generally end up being more expensive than a conventional BWR or PWR. Here I should mention that I spent some time in nuclear physics research. There's a lot of misinformation floating around about nuclear energy. Most of the "miracle solutions" don't live up to their promises (especially thorium tech and breeders). If they did, we'd already be using them -- nuclear engineers are not fools, and most of these reactor concepts have been kicked around for literally decades. One other point: the physics behind breeders and conventional slow-neutron reactors isn't fundamentally different. Both neutron capture ("breeding") and fission ("burning") reactions happen in both, the ratios in a breeder are just optimized to favor the first process more. In fact in conventional light water reactors, around a third of the energy released comes from fissile isotope bred from fertile isotopes such as U-238.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      With the newer breeders (FAST), the main difference is safety. You don't need the same control mechanisms because they automatically cool down due to the physics of them so that they don't melt down. I'd imagine that FAST reactors eliminating the need for ever increasing safety tech and complexity of it for conventional reactors would be a cost savings (or at least make it close). Not to mention the clean up costs when you compare to a conventional reactor that could melt down, even if it's rare. I'm not saying that the engineers are idiots. But there are some engineers (supported by government or corporate funds) still building new prototypes and testing new designs, such as FAST. Especially in the US, a driving reason that new designs aren't used is that there have been few built I'm recent decades - partially due to lower cost alternatives and also due to public opinion.
      - stjohnswarts 6y ago

mikeyouse 6y ago

Depends so much on siting too.. a lot of assumptions on foundations and water handling are baked into plans and even if the reactor room is the same size, you’re going to need an engineering firm comfortable with signing off on a nuke plant run the math based on the new soil composition and 500-year storm rainfalls, etc.

lumost 6y ago

Like any engineering activity it'll depend on how much knowledge of the design the engineering team has. If it's not the same engineering and regulatory teams - then there will be a lot of risk in certifying the plant, little reward, and I'd expect every design decision to be expensively questioned. Not to mention the hundreds of small decisions related to "X part supplier went out of business. Y part is similar with a slightly different alloy and mechanical properties, is it a suitable replacement? how can we verify this?" The original design teams would have auxiliary artifacts that were vetted, and tribal knowledge to help quickly answer these questions. Subsequent design teams will not. The timescales between plant construction exceeds most engineer's memory at 5-10 years.

cratermoon 6y ago

Except that when a safety problem is found with a plant design, you can't just build more from the same blueprint, you have to both refit the older plants with the mitigation and redesign subsequent plants with the fix, so now you're building a new design.