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What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comp
by loufe 5y ago
What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pstuart 5y agoYep. I think the only chance for embracing more nuclear would be to have smaller modular reactors that can be built on an assembly line. And while we're dreaming, moving to Thorium as the fuel.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Brakenshire 5y agoIt’s not too distant a dream, the Rolls Royce small modular reactor designs have just been submitted for approval: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/rolls-royce-submits-modular-nuclear-reactor-designs-for-wylfa-and-trawsfynydd-10-03-2022/ https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/rolls-royce-submits-...
- alvarlagerlof 5y agoI'm betting they don't get approved.
- ncmncm 5y agoAnyway not for longer than hoped. And, if approved, not built anytime soon, as the cost will still be much more than for renewable + storage, at that time. Those latter costs are falling faster than ever.
- alvarlagerlof 5y agoExactly. I heard these modular ones are meant to be cheaper, but they also produce 10x less. Can easily be replaced by a wind farm.
- sascha_sl 5y agoVery distinct things. China is actively deploying modular reactors while thorium salt reactors have many unsolved problems, mostly with durability that will need substantial advancements in material sciences to become viable.
- pstuart 5y agoAcknowledged -- I was smooshing thoughts together.
- yawaramin 5y agoWhat do you think would be the cost of depending on Russia for energy?
- lostlogin 5y agoThe benefit is that it’s likely quite cheap. Can you really not think of a downside?
- yawaramin 5y agoCan you think of a downside that's not fear-mongering?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 8ytecoder 5y agoYup. Energy independence is a cost that’s not factored in. (Then again, solar/wind could serve both factors well)
- yakubin 5y ago> solar/wind could serve both factors well Not 24/7.
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoSure, but let's build 150% of total needed capacity as renewables, and burn coal for the 5 days a year we still need to.
- realusername 5y agoYou start to understand the issue of comparing the raw cost of kWh of renewables to stable energy like nuclear, if you have to build N times the capacity, the cost per kWh is just N times more expensive.
- zamalek 5y agoWith the success of anti-nuclear rhetoric, we became pretty incompetent at building these things. It's just like the space program.
- lostlogin 5y agoThe anti-nuclear crowd being successful might just be an alternate spin on the failure of the nuclear industry.
- Juliate 5y agoOr the actual spin/might of the fossil-extracted energy industry.
- bckr 5y ago... which is in bed with the Russian oligarchy... who are expert in disinformation ...
- aunty_helen 5y agoThe truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoThe truth lies in the resolution of the conflict in Chernobyl, and in every place connected by water to Fukushima.
- zamalek 5y agoOr every place connected by air to ~~thorium ash~~ coal power plants.
- ncmncm 5y agoOr at either end. Or, nowhere near either number. When you are making up numbers to announce, you pick according to the audience, not any physical constraint.
- Hikikomori 5y agoThat isn't something you typically see from Reuters.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cipher_system 5y agoSomething like this. The project started in 2000, construction began in 2005 and should have been completed in 2010. Original cost was 3 billion euro but landed on over 10 billion euro. It is the first nuclear reactor in Europe for 15 years so not much working experience or available sub contractors. Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that. If nuclear energy should be considered, much more must be built more continuously.
- krono 5y ago> Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that. Any insight into the why?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jpgvm 5y agoThey didn't lose their nuclear capability because they kept maintaining and building reactors instead of decommissioning them. US and to a degree most of Europe did not. China in particular plans to build ~250 new reactors over the next few years, most like new HTG reactors based on the pebble bed technology Germany sold to them when they abandoned their next-gen nuclear plans. Russia has reactor building capabilities that are still current but their domestic needs are stagnating so said capability could decay as they don't actually need to build modern reactors at this time. Japan has a similar problem to Russia in that post-Fukishima there isn't domestic demand for nuclear reactors. However they are building reactors for other countries, in particular I think they are planning to build ~20 good sized reactors in India.
- ncmncm 5y agoThis "250" number for China keeps being trotted out, but nobody knows how many of those will actually ever be built or operated. There is anyway not fuel for that many, at present. It would be more honest to cite the much smaller number that have actually broken ground. Nobody knows how many of those will be completed, or how many of those completed will be fueled or operated continuously, or where operated actually mainly generate power, as opposed to generating plutonium and tritium for weapons.
- rdsubhas 5y agoWe have completely screwed up market price discovery for energy with big govt involvement and subsidies. The numbers I see everywhere are cherry picked to present a winner and loser. e.g. Depending on whose point of view you read, solar/wind prices either includes or not: subsidies, storage, land, weather, green label costs passed on to customers, interest rates, etc. Coal prices either includes or not: labor, imports, duties, mining, environmental costs, health costs, etc. Lately I've come to a conclusion that we can make any of these methods appear equal, higher or lower by shifting the books. Atleast I'm happy that this article is focusing only on the benefits and outcome, rather than invent winners and losers.
- rectang 5y agoIf we leave energy decisions to an under-regulated "free market", we guarantee that market forces will select for the most short-termist, externality-spewing choices possible. What do power execs care if they leave behind ruins decades down the road? They will have already made their money and enjoyed it.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI’m hoping all these comments on HN I see that follow the pattern "I was wrong about something important, but rather than admit that, I'm going to believe that the truth is unknowable" are just the first step on someone's journey to accept an unpleasant shock to their ego. It's depressing to think there's a growing army of geeks who have given up on science, rationality and objective reality just because they got sucked in by some propaganda and tied their identity a bit too firmly to it to ever escape.
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoI think the issue is not the geeks grasp of science and objectivity, but the cultures democratization of the talking space to include vast numbers on un-rational and subjective thinkers on equal status with educated and more objective thinkers. Politics and the funding of state actions seems to be enacted highly subjectively according to power plays and vested interests, with minimal impact from rational geeks. This is the defining issue of our times in my opinion, the reason climate change is the barely mitigated disaster it's turning into. We only get a small fraction of the possible benefits of science as a race, because so much of our potential is wasted or actively worked against.
- forty 5y agoIt was shipped with 12 years delay, and has caused billion in loss to the builder Areva/Orano. They are building a similar one in France which will have at least 11 years delay, and also billions of costs overrun. Areva/Orano being a french state owned (mostly) company, this is probably largely paid for by the French tax payer.