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But nuclear power has been around just as long as ICs, so this is an odd comment. Obviously it isn't going to follow the same path as ICs because it already has

But nuclear power has been around just as long as ICs, so this is an odd comment. Obviously it isn't going to follow the same path as ICs because it already hasn't...

epistasis 6y ago
Even worse, nuclear very clearly gets more expensive the more if it we build, not less expensive.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  That's not true and the entire history of mass production is goes against what you just said. If we settled on a common reactor design, that is modular and can not (by design) ever go critical the price would absolutely drop. Surely basic logic will tell you that.
  - olau 6y ago
    The reason your logic doesn't work out is because the assumptions you put in place are counterfactual. What is factual is that the nuclear industry has been around for many decades and has not been able to solve this problem, despite there being lots of pretty clever people involved in it. A contributing factor to making the learning curve negative is that the security guarantees underlying the plant designs are built on what we know can go wrong. As we learn more about the problem, we also learn of more weird failure modes, complicating the design of future plants. I've seen people handwave this away with paper designs. Paper designs are comparatively easy to make safe. Real reactors are much, much harder. If you think this is bullshit, try looking up a certain admiral Rickover and see what he has to say about this. Meanwhile, renewables keep falling in price.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    I'm not sure where the logic is here, you are making an assertion without any supporting evidence. What sort of logic can you provide to back up your assertion? Any such reasoning must also include actual numbers and costs.
    - sir_bearington 6y ago
      > I'm not sure where the logic is here, you are making an assertion without any supporting evidence. You might want to take your own advice. You did the exact same ting, make an assertion without supporting evidence, in your previous comment. > What sort of logic can you provide to back up your assertion? Any such reasoning must also include actual numbers and costs Nuclear power was built with an average cost of $2-3 billion dollars per GWe of capacity when nuclear was built at scale during the late 1960s through much of the 1980s [1]. The US was building nuclear plants at a rate of several plants per year, rather than several plants per decade. The same pattern holds true in France. During the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, plants of the same design were built in serial production. Now, when they're building plants one or two at a time it's more expensive. There's a clear pattern of cheaper plants when built at scale, and this pattern holds true across the two main nuclear power producers. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
      - epistasis 6y ago
        I wasn't the one who said my assertion was true because of "logic" You seem to be backing up my point with your claims. Nuclear has consistently gotten more expensive over time. The designs you point to from the 1970s will never be built again, because nuclear engineers realized their flaws and don't want to build them again. With each new generation of nuclear, it gets more expensive, not less. As we refine the designs, we spend more per GW, not less. And not just a little bit more, but massively more. Even if we build the AP1000 serially, do you think it could reach $3B/GW? That's a huge hike in reasoning, and I'm not sure where in the long long Wikipedia article for nuclear power it states that serially production of the same design could drop costs by a factor or 4 (or more). Everywhere it has been studied, nuclear has a negative learning rate. See, for example, Figure 1 and the many articles it cites: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...
        sir_bearington 6y ago
        > You seem to be backing up my point with your claims. Nuclear has consistently gotten more expensive over time. And we're also building fewer nuclear plants over time. Let's revisit your point: > Even worse, nuclear very clearly gets more expensive the more if it we build, not less expensive. This is not only untrue, it is the opposite of true. The more of it is built, the less expensive it is. The less of it is built, the more expensive it is. You're right that nuclear has gotten more expensive. But that's because we're building less of it. If what you said were true - that nuclear get more expensive the more we build it - then today's nuclear plants should be cheaper than the ones built in the 1970s and 1980s during the nuclear boom. > Even if we build the AP1000 serially, do you think it could reach $3B/GW? That's a huge hike in reasoning, and I'm not sure where in the long long Wikipedia article for nuclear power it states that serially production of the same design could drop costs by a factor or 4 (or more). It's not a huge hike in reasoning. It's based on the price history of previous plant construction. Click on those plants built in the 1970s and early 80s. Many were built at a cost of only $2B. AP1000s are fundamentally not much different than previous PWR designs. Iterative improvements extend life and generate a bit more power, but the overall layout is the same. In short we did build nuclear plants at scale, and it was 4-5x cheaper. This is a claim based on demonstrable patterns in price history.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

But nuclear power has been around just as long as ICs, so this is an odd comment. Obviously it isn't going to follow the same path as ICs because it already hasn't...

epistasis 6y ago

Even worse, nuclear very clearly gets more expensive the more if it we build, not less expensive.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
That's not true and the entire history of mass production is goes against what you just said. If we settled on a common reactor design, that is modular and can not (by design) ever go critical the price would absolutely drop. Surely basic logic will tell you that.
- olau 6y ago
  The reason your logic doesn't work out is because the assumptions you put in place are counterfactual. What is factual is that the nuclear industry has been around for many decades and has not been able to solve this problem, despite there being lots of pretty clever people involved in it. A contributing factor to making the learning curve negative is that the security guarantees underlying the plant designs are built on what we know can go wrong. As we learn more about the problem, we also learn of more weird failure modes, complicating the design of future plants. I've seen people handwave this away with paper designs. Paper designs are comparatively easy to make safe. Real reactors are much, much harder. If you think this is bullshit, try looking up a certain admiral Rickover and see what he has to say about this. Meanwhile, renewables keep falling in price.
- epistasis 6y ago
  I'm not sure where the logic is here, you are making an assertion without any supporting evidence. What sort of logic can you provide to back up your assertion? Any such reasoning must also include actual numbers and costs.
  - sir_bearington 6y ago
    > I'm not sure where the logic is here, you are making an assertion without any supporting evidence. You might want to take your own advice. You did the exact same ting, make an assertion without supporting evidence, in your previous comment. > What sort of logic can you provide to back up your assertion? Any such reasoning must also include actual numbers and costs Nuclear power was built with an average cost of $2-3 billion dollars per GWe of capacity when nuclear was built at scale during the late 1960s through much of the 1980s [1]. The US was building nuclear plants at a rate of several plants per year, rather than several plants per decade. The same pattern holds true in France. During the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, plants of the same design were built in serial production. Now, when they're building plants one or two at a time it's more expensive. There's a clear pattern of cheaper plants when built at scale, and this pattern holds true across the two main nuclear power producers. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
    - epistasis 6y ago
      I wasn't the one who said my assertion was true because of "logic" You seem to be backing up my point with your claims. Nuclear has consistently gotten more expensive over time. The designs you point to from the 1970s will never be built again, because nuclear engineers realized their flaws and don't want to build them again. With each new generation of nuclear, it gets more expensive, not less. As we refine the designs, we spend more per GW, not less. And not just a little bit more, but massively more. Even if we build the AP1000 serially, do you think it could reach $3B/GW? That's a huge hike in reasoning, and I'm not sure where in the long long Wikipedia article for nuclear power it states that serially production of the same design could drop costs by a factor or 4 (or more). Everywhere it has been studied, nuclear has a negative learning rate. See, for example, Figure 1 and the many articles it cites: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...
      - sir_bearington 6y ago
        > You seem to be backing up my point with your claims. Nuclear has consistently gotten more expensive over time. And we're also building fewer nuclear plants over time. Let's revisit your point: > Even worse, nuclear very clearly gets more expensive the more if it we build, not less expensive. This is not only untrue, it is the opposite of true. The more of it is built, the less expensive it is. The less of it is built, the more expensive it is. You're right that nuclear has gotten more expensive. But that's because we're building less of it. If what you said were true - that nuclear get more expensive the more we build it - then today's nuclear plants should be cheaper than the ones built in the 1970s and 1980s during the nuclear boom. > Even if we build the AP1000 serially, do you think it could reach $3B/GW? That's a huge hike in reasoning, and I'm not sure where in the long long Wikipedia article for nuclear power it states that serially production of the same design could drop costs by a factor or 4 (or more). It's not a huge hike in reasoning. It's based on the price history of previous plant construction. Click on those plants built in the 1970s and early 80s. Many were built at a cost of only $2B. AP1000s are fundamentally not much different than previous PWR designs. Iterative improvements extend life and generate a bit more power, but the overall layout is the same. In short we did build nuclear plants at scale, and it was 4-5x cheaper. This is a claim based on demonstrable patterns in price history.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]