8 ms·

Nuclear won't solve the climate crisis as it's too slow to build.

orlovs 5y ago
Nuclear is slow to build as we dont have much experience to build it. More we will build it, the better we will become in it
- laurent92 5y ago
  France chose to build in bulk of 5-15 plants, as seen in this (extremely interesting) Gantt diagram: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Chrono-parc-nucleaire-francais.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Chrono-p...
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    And famously tried out negative learning by doing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
    - orlovs 5y ago
      Nice! Worth reading?
rhn_mk1 5y ago
Nothing will solve the climate crisis in the time frame it takes to build a nuclear reactor. If you start building now, you get part of the solution in the future.
- tuukkah 5y ago
  Finland is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2035. Do you suggest that if we start planning now, we can rely on having new nuclear plants operational in 13 years? Also note that we wouldn't be buying them from Russia because of the current war, and China would be risky in the same way. There's a current project where the only offer was from Russia and that one is being suspended indefinitely right now.
  - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
    Yes, if we throw capital at the problem and fast track regulatory approval, I don't see why that's not possible. Do you think it's not?
    - tuukkah 5y ago
      You don't want to "fast track" nuclear security and this is not something you can iterate by building unsafe plants first. Even as it is, people don't want a nuclear plant in their backyard and it's a long process to find and secure a suitable location. You'd need huge amounts of capital with big risks and little profits foreseen. The track record from the latest western projects is horrible so I don't see how it would be possible to get the backing now.
      - mjevans 5y ago
        "fast track approval" -- spare no expense in manpower to review with as little delay as possible. Many workers in parallel, all required regulations observed. Your implication is "cut corners" which is a misunderstanding.
      - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
        >You'd need huge amounts of capital with big risks and little profits foreseen. Ok, so nationalize it. Problem solved.
  - acchow 5y ago
    13 years? Korea has built plenty of reactors in 5 years
    - afterburner 5y ago
      And yet this one took 17 years.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      Easier when you cheat on the documentation. Sitting on two chairs at the same time is hard. > In November 2012 it was discovered that over 5,000 small components used in five reactors at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant had not been properly certified; eight suppliers had faked 60 warranties for the parts. Two reactors were shut down for component replacement, which was likely to cause power shortages in South Korea during the winter.[23] Reuters reported this as South Korea's worst nuclear crisis, highlighting a lack of transparency on nuclear safety and the dual roles of South Korea's nuclear regulators on supervision and promotion.[24] This incident followed the prosecution of five senior engineers for the coverup of a serious loss of power and cooling incident at Kori Nuclear Power Plant, which was subsequently graded at INES level 2.[23][25] > In 2013, there was a scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts in nuclear plants and faked quality assurance certificates. In June 2013 Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1 were shut down, and Kori 1 and Shin Wolsong 2 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[26] Control cabling in the first APR-1400s under construction had to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[27] In October 2013 about 100 people were indicted for falsifying safety documents, including a former chief executive of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and a vice-president of Korea Electric Power Corporation.[28] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea
throw0101a 5y ago
At the very least we should stop shutting down current nuclear power plants. Any newly built renewable generation should be used to retire fossil fuel plants first, and once those are gone then we can consider retiring (current) nuclear.
- justatdotin 5y ago
  they have an EOL for a reason...
  - Kuinox 5y ago
    If you changed every part of a boat, does the original EOL of the boat still make sense ? Yes there are unremplacable parts in a nuclear reactor, but if it's measured to be safe to continue, then there is no reason to respect the initial EOL.
    - afterburner 5y ago
      Corners get cut on refurbishment, for political reasons, and the facility continues to degrade while their life is too far extended. Fukushima had this issue.
      - mjevans 5y ago
        Fukushima's main issue is related to attempts to 'save face'. International aid for cooling water and power (for cooling/etc) was offered, and rejected, despite the basement diesel generators being flooded by the tsunami that resulted from the earthquake. Realistically the plant was built somewhere they shouldn't have placed it, and the safety systems should have been retrofitted with additional raised systems once the risk was properly understood.
      - dantheman 5y ago
        ... hit by a tidal wave.
        5y ago
zucker42 5y ago
In 7.5 years (mean time for construction of a nuclear power plant), there will still be oil, gas, and even coal plants in operation in many countries. Nuclear capacity is clearly not useless.
pasiaj 5y ago
Wind turbines work on average at 18-30% efficiency in Finland. The nadir efficiency is roughly at 6%. You'd need to build 1300+ 3MW wind turbines to match the average production of Olkiluoto 3, or 7000+ turbines to guarantee the same level of constant output that this plant puts out reliably. We had this "too slow to build" -argument 15 years ago, but no other renewables have delivered. We built 67 new windmills in 2020. That number would have to be double for your argument to start being plausible in our environment. France has 56 nuclear plants that provide roughly 73% of the energy needs of the country. ~73% of this capacity was finished between 1980 and 1990. Modern regulation and the scarcity of new builds has made building slower, but it should be expected that Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade.
- tuukkah 5y ago
  > no other renewables have delivered. These nuclear plants haven't delivered. Meanwhile, renewables have become cheap and mainstream, and their market keeps improving constantly. > Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade. They should but do they? I hear it's not going so well in their new project in the UK either.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  3 MW is tiny. Today we build ~15 MW ones with capacity factors at 60-64%. https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind/haliade-x-offshore-turbine https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind... https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW > Modern regulation and the scarcity of new builds has made building slower, but it should be expected that Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade. Went so swimmingly that Areva went into bankruptcy a couple of years ago. The company only exists to shield EDF and the French state from any remaining risk they still can from Olkilouto 3.
- bigbugbag 5y ago
  THe current report on Areva ability to build plants has been the object of a public statement by Bernard Doroszczuk, head of ASN (nuclear safety atuhtority) in newspaper Le Monde[1] He basically says that France is currently or close to be facing a industrial failure for the whole existing nuclear plants which means the nuclear safety cannot be guaranteed. The ability to build anything nuclear is out of reach for France who lacks engineers and technical know how which is the consequences of decades old political decisions to outsource to China, there is a lack of anticipation and no plans which is leading France in a probable dead-end. The current French EPR in flamanville has confirmed what happened with Okiluoto, hundreds of failures, lack of planning, huge delays, low quality with forged document, going over budget by several times. You may be interested in reading Marc Endeweld most recent book "L'Emprise. La France sous influence" it covers the current state of nuclear in France and it depicts an even bleaker picture than what the head of ASN publicly acknowledges. [1]: https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2022/01/19/la-poursuite-de-fonctionnement-des-reacteurs-nucleaires-d-edf-ne-doit-pas-etre-la-variable-d-ajustement-de-la-politique-energetique-francaise_6110102_3234.html https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2022/01/19/la-poursu...
ketralnis 5y ago
No one thing will solve it, it will take a constellation of lots of things. If you do nothing while you wait for the one single solution, it won't get solved at all.
johndevor 5y ago
Assembly line SMRs maybe
BurningFrog 5y ago
Show the numbers behind this assertion, if you have any. Reactors take 5-10 years to build.
- afterburner 5y ago
  Um, the one in this very article took 17 years.
  - korantu 5y ago
    The fact that other countries build reactors en masse in 5 years, tells us it is possible. South Korea is good place to learn from
    - bigbugbag 5y ago
      Not so sure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30657725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30657725 Also we already have a similar level of wrongdoings with the French EPRs.
  - chelical 5y ago
    The process takes much longer due to political issues not technical ones. The ongoing price crunch and energy sanctions have allowed Finland to speed up the process. The same thing happened with vaccine production and COVID. Normally, vaccines take much longer to develop, test, and approve. If we followed your logic, we wouldn't bother with lockdowns since a vaccine could take a decade to develop.
    - afterburner 5y ago
      What does a conflict that started two weeks ago have to do with the construction time of a reactor that has taken 17 years to build. You also don't seem to realize the other reason, and the primary reason, to lockdown is to lighten the peak load on hospitals, in response to waves of infection.

Nuclear is slow to build as we dont have much experience to build it. More we will build it, the better we will become in it

laurent92 5y ago
France chose to build in bulk of 5-15 plants, as seen in this (extremely interesting) Gantt diagram: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Chrono-parc-nucleaire-francais.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Chrono-p...
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  And famously tried out negative learning by doing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
  - orlovs 5y ago
    Nice! Worth reading?

rhn_mk1 5y ago

Nothing will solve the climate crisis in the time frame it takes to build a nuclear reactor. If you start building now, you get part of the solution in the future.

tuukkah 5y ago
Finland is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2035. Do you suggest that if we start planning now, we can rely on having new nuclear plants operational in 13 years? Also note that we wouldn't be buying them from Russia because of the current war, and China would be risky in the same way. There's a current project where the only offer was from Russia and that one is being suspended indefinitely right now.
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  Yes, if we throw capital at the problem and fast track regulatory approval, I don't see why that's not possible. Do you think it's not?
  - tuukkah 5y ago
    You don't want to "fast track" nuclear security and this is not something you can iterate by building unsafe plants first. Even as it is, people don't want a nuclear plant in their backyard and it's a long process to find and secure a suitable location. You'd need huge amounts of capital with big risks and little profits foreseen. The track record from the latest western projects is horrible so I don't see how it would be possible to get the backing now.
    - mjevans 5y ago
      "fast track approval" -- spare no expense in manpower to review with as little delay as possible. Many workers in parallel, all required regulations observed. Your implication is "cut corners" which is a misunderstanding.
    - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
      >You'd need huge amounts of capital with big risks and little profits foreseen. Ok, so nationalize it. Problem solved.
- acchow 5y ago
  13 years? Korea has built plenty of reactors in 5 years
  - afterburner 5y ago
    And yet this one took 17 years.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    Easier when you cheat on the documentation. Sitting on two chairs at the same time is hard. > In November 2012 it was discovered that over 5,000 small components used in five reactors at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant had not been properly certified; eight suppliers had faked 60 warranties for the parts. Two reactors were shut down for component replacement, which was likely to cause power shortages in South Korea during the winter.[23] Reuters reported this as South Korea's worst nuclear crisis, highlighting a lack of transparency on nuclear safety and the dual roles of South Korea's nuclear regulators on supervision and promotion.[24] This incident followed the prosecution of five senior engineers for the coverup of a serious loss of power and cooling incident at Kori Nuclear Power Plant, which was subsequently graded at INES level 2.[23][25] > In 2013, there was a scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts in nuclear plants and faked quality assurance certificates. In June 2013 Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1 were shut down, and Kori 1 and Shin Wolsong 2 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[26] Control cabling in the first APR-1400s under construction had to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[27] In October 2013 about 100 people were indicted for falsifying safety documents, including a former chief executive of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and a vice-president of Korea Electric Power Corporation.[28] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea

throw0101a 5y ago

At the very least we should stop shutting down current nuclear power plants. Any newly built renewable generation should be used to retire fossil fuel plants first, and once those are gone then we can consider retiring (current) nuclear.

justatdotin 5y ago
they have an EOL for a reason...
- Kuinox 5y ago
  If you changed every part of a boat, does the original EOL of the boat still make sense ? Yes there are unremplacable parts in a nuclear reactor, but if it's measured to be safe to continue, then there is no reason to respect the initial EOL.
  - afterburner 5y ago
    Corners get cut on refurbishment, for political reasons, and the facility continues to degrade while their life is too far extended. Fukushima had this issue.
    - mjevans 5y ago
      Fukushima's main issue is related to attempts to 'save face'. International aid for cooling water and power (for cooling/etc) was offered, and rejected, despite the basement diesel generators being flooded by the tsunami that resulted from the earthquake. Realistically the plant was built somewhere they shouldn't have placed it, and the safety systems should have been retrofitted with additional raised systems once the risk was properly understood.
    - dantheman 5y ago
      ... hit by a tidal wave.
      - 5y ago

zucker42 5y ago

In 7.5 years (mean time for construction of a nuclear power plant), there will still be oil, gas, and even coal plants in operation in many countries. Nuclear capacity is clearly not useless.

pasiaj 5y ago

Wind turbines work on average at 18-30% efficiency in Finland. The nadir efficiency is roughly at 6%. You'd need to build 1300+ 3MW wind turbines to match the average production of Olkiluoto 3, or 7000+ turbines to guarantee the same level of constant output that this plant puts out reliably. We had this "too slow to build" -argument 15 years ago, but no other renewables have delivered. We built 67 new windmills in 2020. That number would have to be double for your argument to start being plausible in our environment. France has 56 nuclear plants that provide roughly 73% of the energy needs of the country. ~73% of this capacity was finished between 1980 and 1990. Modern regulation and the scarcity of new builds has made building slower, but it should be expected that Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade.

tuukkah 5y ago
> no other renewables have delivered. These nuclear plants haven't delivered. Meanwhile, renewables have become cheap and mainstream, and their market keeps improving constantly. > Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade. They should but do they? I hear it's not going so well in their new project in the UK either.
Gwypaas 5y ago
3 MW is tiny. Today we build ~15 MW ones with capacity factors at 60-64%. https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind/haliade-x-offshore-turbine https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind... https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW > Modern regulation and the scarcity of new builds has made building slower, but it should be expected that Areva, the builder of Olkiluoto 3, should be able to pump out new facilities and significantly faster rate compared to the last decade. Went so swimmingly that Areva went into bankruptcy a couple of years ago. The company only exists to shield EDF and the French state from any remaining risk they still can from Olkilouto 3.
bigbugbag 5y ago
THe current report on Areva ability to build plants has been the object of a public statement by Bernard Doroszczuk, head of ASN (nuclear safety atuhtority) in newspaper Le Monde[1] He basically says that France is currently or close to be facing a industrial failure for the whole existing nuclear plants which means the nuclear safety cannot be guaranteed. The ability to build anything nuclear is out of reach for France who lacks engineers and technical know how which is the consequences of decades old political decisions to outsource to China, there is a lack of anticipation and no plans which is leading France in a probable dead-end. The current French EPR in flamanville has confirmed what happened with Okiluoto, hundreds of failures, lack of planning, huge delays, low quality with forged document, going over budget by several times. You may be interested in reading Marc Endeweld most recent book "L'Emprise. La France sous influence" it covers the current state of nuclear in France and it depicts an even bleaker picture than what the head of ASN publicly acknowledges. [1]: https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2022/01/19/la-poursuite-de-fonctionnement-des-reacteurs-nucleaires-d-edf-ne-doit-pas-etre-la-variable-d-ajustement-de-la-politique-energetique-francaise_6110102_3234.html https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2022/01/19/la-poursu...

ketralnis 5y ago

No one thing will solve it, it will take a constellation of lots of things. If you do nothing while you wait for the one single solution, it won't get solved at all.

johndevor 5y ago

Assembly line SMRs maybe

BurningFrog 5y ago

Show the numbers behind this assertion, if you have any. Reactors take 5-10 years to build.

afterburner 5y ago
Um, the one in this very article took 17 years.
- korantu 5y ago
  The fact that other countries build reactors en masse in 5 years, tells us it is possible. South Korea is good place to learn from
  - bigbugbag 5y ago
    Not so sure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30657725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30657725 Also we already have a similar level of wrongdoings with the French EPRs.
- chelical 5y ago
  The process takes much longer due to political issues not technical ones. The ongoing price crunch and energy sanctions have allowed Finland to speed up the process. The same thing happened with vaccine production and COVID. Normally, vaccines take much longer to develop, test, and approve. If we followed your logic, we wouldn't bother with lockdowns since a vaccine could take a decade to develop.
  - afterburner 5y ago
    What does a conflict that started two weeks ago have to do with the construction time of a reactor that has taken 17 years to build. You also don't seem to realize the other reason, and the primary reason, to lockdown is to lighten the peak load on hospitals, in response to waves of infection.