3 ms·

It looks like we're realizing some efficiencies from mechanization and automation. Newer generation designs will be a bit better, it looks like. But-- nuke op

by mlyle 5y ago

It looks like we're realizing some efficiencies from mechanization and automation. Newer generation designs will be a bit better, it looks like. But-- nuke operating cost is OK. The operating cost is not an issue with us having plenty of power when we want it even if the vast majority of our power mix was nuclear (and that's not something I advocate for: just an increased share of nuclear in the mix). The issue is the capital costs-- and as you say, they are awful right now because so few nuclear plants are being constructed, because: - They face an unclear and varying regulatory environment, where there have been plants fully completed and not granted a license to commence operation. - Natural gas is so damn cheap.

ncmncm 5y ago
And so few nukes are built because capital costs are awful. It is hard to imagine any way out. I have been trying to understand nuke construction economics. Ultimately, it seems tied to our mode of government: for any entity smaller than the Feds to pull together the $billions for a nuke project takes enlisting a huge patronage network, who must then be ladled gravy. Most of the cost is not construction, as such, but gravy, disguised. It stretches to a decade and beyond because the moment it's finished, the gravy dries up. No one actually involved wants that ever to happen, not even if the stalling makes no one ever want to start another project like it. So, a nuke plant is like a bullet train or urban transit tunnel. The Feds might be able to build a nuke plant, but every detail of the industry, what there is of it, is tuned to extracting gravy, which I doubt even the Feds could overcome (presuming they would want to). An incremental nuke that grows in 100 MW units, and produces power very early, might work, adding capacity continually. (But turbines want economy of scale.) Or, a nuke to provide process heat for a cluster of industrial plants in the daytime, commissioned and managed by them, but generating regional power overnight. But the well seems too toxic. The purely incremental nature of solar, wind, and batteries leaves little room for corruption, making them tough competition. With HVDC transmission cost falling and efficiency rising, whoever builds out cheapest can prop up everybody for a thousand miles around. The thing about nukes is that the heat driving it seems free, but heat is pretty cheap. The cost of turning heat into power, and all the complications, dominates.

by mlyle 5y ago

ncmncm 5y ago

And so few nukes are built because capital costs are awful. It is hard to imagine any way out. I have been trying to understand nuke construction economics. Ultimately, it seems tied to our mode of government: for any entity smaller than the Feds to pull together the $billions for a nuke project takes enlisting a huge patronage network, who must then be ladled gravy. Most of the cost is not construction, as such, but gravy, disguised. It stretches to a decade and beyond because the moment it's finished, the gravy dries up. No one actually involved wants that ever to happen, not even if the stalling makes no one ever want to start another project like it. So, a nuke plant is like a bullet train or urban transit tunnel. The Feds might be able to build a nuke plant, but every detail of the industry, what there is of it, is tuned to extracting gravy, which I doubt even the Feds could overcome (presuming they would want to). An incremental nuke that grows in 100 MW units, and produces power very early, might work, adding capacity continually. (But turbines want economy of scale.) Or, a nuke to provide process heat for a cluster of industrial plants in the daytime, commissioned and managed by them, but generating regional power overnight. But the well seems too toxic. The purely incremental nature of solar, wind, and batteries leaves little room for corruption, making them tough competition. With HVDC transmission cost falling and efficiency rising, whoever builds out cheapest can prop up everybody for a thousand miles around. The thing about nukes is that the heat driving it seems free, but heat is pretty cheap. The cost of turning heat into power, and all the complications, dominates.