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There's no reason to assume that building the same nuclear reactor design multiple time will maintain the same cost or decrease. Even with the supposedly succe

There's no reason to assume that building the same nuclear reactor design multiple time will maintain the same cost or decrease. Even with the supposedly successful French nuclear program, costs increased over time, there was negative learning: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... There's huge huge risk in choosing a particular design and building even one of it, because we don't know if it will be constructible the first time, and we don't know if future builds of the first design will be more or less expensive. When each build is a $10B roll of the dice with variance of 2-3x of initial estimates, it's a bit difficult to find rational financial backers. Especially when there's not that much profit to be had from even a successful build. The risk reward is completely out of whack compared to the other options for carbon neutral energy.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
Of course there is, it's happened exactly the way I said in South Korea, Japan, and American naval reactors. These projects take a long time to complete and there have been relatively few of them. It therefore stands to reason that the cycle of learning from them and making their construction more predictable would take longer than for e.g. cars. Far too many people are generalizing from the French and American nuclear programs, both of which built lots of reactors in a comparatively short time and then were fear-mongered into a standstill by the fossil fuel lobby. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... """In the third era of nuclear power construction in Japan, from 1980 to 2007, costs remain between ¥250,000/kW and ¥400,000/kW, representing an annual change of −1% to 1%. This period experienced relatively stable costs over 27 years."""
belorn 5y ago
The other options for carbon neutral energy that does not rely on using fossil fuel as part of the energy strategy are few and far between. The few suggested solutions tend to rely on battery solutions for wind power (at least for countries this far up north). It would be great to see an attempt to such battery solution that would cover the same amount of capacity as this plant, that can operate for at least several months without recharging, in Finish winter, and cost less than this plant and be built faster. That would check all the boxes, and if such technology already exist, people here should really put their investment money into it.
roenxi 5y ago
The negative learning rate is a strong signal of interference by the regulators. More than anything else it shows how excessive safety regulations are strangled the industry. 1970s nuclear safety standards, despite it all, were still better than the energy strategy the world adopted from 1970-2020. Killing off nuclear in search of a perfect power system was a stupid strategy, and failed. The only unfortunate point of karmic justice is that Europe ended up reliant on Russian gas and in an energy crisis as a reward for their stubbornness against making the technically obvious choice. Well done Finland for even managing to get a reactor built in the face of all that.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  And Fukushima would never happened if you were smart about it. Regulations are written in blog.
  - ciphol 5y ago
    Fukushima has killed only a handful of people. Fossil fuels kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      That is why we should immediately replace fossil fuels with renewables right?
      - roenxi 5y ago
        Ironically, the evidence to date is that'd probably get more people killed due to energy security issues. The last group who tried to apply that logic in defiance of market forces - the Germans - are currently staring at each other wondering what to do about their reliance on Russian gas. If they'd acted rationally, acknowledged Fukushima and moved on with trying to make their nuclear power cheaper instead letting ideology determine that part of their energy policy then they wouldn't be in the mess they are in. Instead they pushed ahead with renewables, ignored technical problems like reliability and have ended up looking like fools while literally paying a high price for the privilege. France continues to quietly plod away as a reliable European energy success story.

Godel_unicode 5y ago

Of course there is, it's happened exactly the way I said in South Korea, Japan, and American naval reactors. These projects take a long time to complete and there have been relatively few of them. It therefore stands to reason that the cycle of learning from them and making their construction more predictable would take longer than for e.g. cars. Far too many people are generalizing from the French and American nuclear programs, both of which built lots of reactors in a comparatively short time and then were fear-mongered into a standstill by the fossil fuel lobby. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... """In the third era of nuclear power construction in Japan, from 1980 to 2007, costs remain between ¥250,000/kW and ¥400,000/kW, representing an annual change of −1% to 1%. This period experienced relatively stable costs over 27 years."""

belorn 5y ago

The other options for carbon neutral energy that does not rely on using fossil fuel as part of the energy strategy are few and far between. The few suggested solutions tend to rely on battery solutions for wind power (at least for countries this far up north). It would be great to see an attempt to such battery solution that would cover the same amount of capacity as this plant, that can operate for at least several months without recharging, in Finish winter, and cost less than this plant and be built faster. That would check all the boxes, and if such technology already exist, people here should really put their investment money into it.

roenxi 5y ago

The negative learning rate is a strong signal of interference by the regulators. More than anything else it shows how excessive safety regulations are strangled the industry. 1970s nuclear safety standards, despite it all, were still better than the energy strategy the world adopted from 1970-2020. Killing off nuclear in search of a perfect power system was a stupid strategy, and failed. The only unfortunate point of karmic justice is that Europe ended up reliant on Russian gas and in an energy crisis as a reward for their stubbornness against making the technically obvious choice. Well done Finland for even managing to get a reactor built in the face of all that.

Gwypaas 5y ago
And Fukushima would never happened if you were smart about it. Regulations are written in blog.
- ciphol 5y ago
  Fukushima has killed only a handful of people. Fossil fuels kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    That is why we should immediately replace fossil fuels with renewables right?
    - roenxi 5y ago
      Ironically, the evidence to date is that'd probably get more people killed due to energy security issues. The last group who tried to apply that logic in defiance of market forces - the Germans - are currently staring at each other wondering what to do about their reliance on Russian gas. If they'd acted rationally, acknowledged Fukushima and moved on with trying to make their nuclear power cheaper instead letting ideology determine that part of their energy policy then they wouldn't be in the mess they are in. Instead they pushed ahead with renewables, ignored technical problems like reliability and have ended up looking like fools while literally paying a high price for the privilege. France continues to quietly plod away as a reliable European energy success story.