3 ms·

I guess I have to read the full paper, because reading the link does nothing to clear up what is going on. From reading the link I get, change orders cost mone

I guess I have to read the full paper, because reading the link does nothing to clear up what is going on. From reading the link I get, change orders cost money (duh!) and that there are a lot of change orders, particularly to older designs due to "changing regulation". Cause presumably before starting construction the older design has been mitigated to deal with newer regulations. Which from my own biases, seems to mean that courts/etc are stepping in and modifying the regulations during construction and that costs a sh*tload. Otherwise the builders are negligent, or simply that it took 30 years to get approval for the plans, but now its a catch 22 because they are outdated.

jt2190 6y ago
All large systems are, in a sense, obsolete as soon as construction begins. The longer construction takes, the more out-of-date the finished product. And then there are the decades of operation. Consider, for example, that one year into construction of a new power plant a completely unrelated investigation into fires concludes with the finding that a certain kind of electrical wire, when installed incorrectly, can short and cause a fire. The power plant has already installed miles of the exact same wire. The wire manufacturer has a new product that prevents incorrect installation, but the plant designs call for the old wire. What to do? * Pause construction while they adjust the plant designs with the new wiring? * Continue construction, but inspect the existing wiring, and reinstall if necessary? * Leave the wiring in place, but install a fire-remediation solution for the already-installed wiring? All large systems have to deal with these kinds of changes. (It’s interesting to look at the changes in a “class” of ships over them as they build each one, for example.)
- selestify 6y ago
  Is there a field of study/practice that deals with such changes to large scale system? It does sound like a very useful thing to systematically study, if possible.
- StillBored 6y ago
  But those problems exist for large coal/etc plants as well, so some of that is baked into the equation and doesn't do much to explain why nuke plants end up paying 10x as much for a plant that is only slightly more complex.
  - philipkglass 6y ago
    My take: one significant issue is that nuclear power is the only large scale electricity source with meaningful, consistently enforced regulations. There's no equivalent of the NRC setting welding standards for the steam systems of coal plants and demanding that control systems are guarded against wiring fires. General safety and environmental regulators are often deliberately underfunded by business-friendly legislatures, and even violations that they catch are rarely considered severe enough to shut down a site until remediation. And of course nuclear reactors are (rightfully!) expected to contain their waste products, while combustion plants still get a free pass to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. The result is that very few industrial sectors in the US have experience receiving meticulous government oversight that they cannot ignore. Aerospace [1], pharmaceutical manufacturing, and nuclear power are about the only ones I can think of. If contractors don't have institutional knowledge of actually working on nuclear projects (which are already more complex than a big coal or gas project), they may not be prepared for regulators that actually check the work and demand it adhere to documented standards. Just about every other project can let marginal welds or inconsistent paperwork slide with "eh, you tried." The really expensive part about nuclear projects isn't doing the work. It's redoing the work that you failed to do up to standards the first time. But you absolutely do not want to make the NRC more lax to bring it in line with the barely-there standards the rest of industry is used to ignoring. You don't want the nuclear equivalent of the West Fertilizer Company -- inspected twice in 28 years, minor violations ignored until the plant exploded [2]. [1] You might even put an asterisk on "aerospace" considering the 737 MAX debacle. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  Exactly, and when a reactor takes 10 years to build it's almost guaranteed you'll discover some issues after construction begins.
- subroutine 6y ago
  The article highlights that... > Among the surprising findings was that contrary to expectations building subsequent plants based on an existing design actually costs more, not less, than building the initial plant. Given your example wouldn't that mean replacing the wiring of all previous plants of the same design? I suppose this is one way cost overruns get compounded - an issue discovered during the current build would likely apply to the previous builds. (any actual examples of this?)

jt2190 6y ago

All large systems are, in a sense, obsolete as soon as construction begins. The longer construction takes, the more out-of-date the finished product. And then there are the decades of operation. Consider, for example, that one year into construction of a new power plant a completely unrelated investigation into fires concludes with the finding that a certain kind of electrical wire, when installed incorrectly, can short and cause a fire. The power plant has already installed miles of the exact same wire. The wire manufacturer has a new product that prevents incorrect installation, but the plant designs call for the old wire. What to do? * Pause construction while they adjust the plant designs with the new wiring? * Continue construction, but inspect the existing wiring, and reinstall if necessary? * Leave the wiring in place, but install a fire-remediation solution for the already-installed wiring? All large systems have to deal with these kinds of changes. (It’s interesting to look at the changes in a “class” of ships over them as they build each one, for example.)

selestify 6y ago
Is there a field of study/practice that deals with such changes to large scale system? It does sound like a very useful thing to systematically study, if possible.
StillBored 6y ago
But those problems exist for large coal/etc plants as well, so some of that is baked into the equation and doesn't do much to explain why nuke plants end up paying 10x as much for a plant that is only slightly more complex.
- philipkglass 6y ago
  My take: one significant issue is that nuclear power is the only large scale electricity source with meaningful, consistently enforced regulations. There's no equivalent of the NRC setting welding standards for the steam systems of coal plants and demanding that control systems are guarded against wiring fires. General safety and environmental regulators are often deliberately underfunded by business-friendly legislatures, and even violations that they catch are rarely considered severe enough to shut down a site until remediation. And of course nuclear reactors are (rightfully!) expected to contain their waste products, while combustion plants still get a free pass to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. The result is that very few industrial sectors in the US have experience receiving meticulous government oversight that they cannot ignore. Aerospace [1], pharmaceutical manufacturing, and nuclear power are about the only ones I can think of. If contractors don't have institutional knowledge of actually working on nuclear projects (which are already more complex than a big coal or gas project), they may not be prepared for regulators that actually check the work and demand it adhere to documented standards. Just about every other project can let marginal welds or inconsistent paperwork slide with "eh, you tried." The really expensive part about nuclear projects isn't doing the work. It's redoing the work that you failed to do up to standards the first time. But you absolutely do not want to make the NRC more lax to bring it in line with the barely-there standards the rest of industry is used to ignoring. You don't want the nuclear equivalent of the West Fertilizer Company -- inspected twice in 28 years, minor violations ignored until the plant exploded [2]. [1] You might even put an asterisk on "aerospace" considering the 737 MAX debacle. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...
CogentHedgehog 6y ago
Exactly, and when a reactor takes 10 years to build it's almost guaranteed you'll discover some issues after construction begins.
subroutine 6y ago
The article highlights that... > Among the surprising findings was that contrary to expectations building subsequent plants based on an existing design actually costs more, not less, than building the initial plant. Given your example wouldn't that mean replacing the wiring of all previous plants of the same design? I suppose this is one way cost overruns get compounded - an issue discovered during the current build would likely apply to the previous builds. (any actual examples of this?)