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> A nuclear power plant costs between $6B - $9B to build Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? > Regulatory costs for a nuclear power plant will r

> A nuclear power plant costs between $6B - $9B to build Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? > Regulatory costs for a nuclear power plant will range between $7M - $15M annually. This is disenginous number. Every single supplier, compliance, proposal, EVERYTHING about nuclear is regulated. Behind this $7M-$15M on paper costs, lies the true cost of regulations: $6B-$9B. > The money is what is important. Your money should be important to you, so please make sure you only support agendas that work for your personal economic interests rather than the interests of the richest of the rich. Strange thing to say.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
So you're saying that if we removed the regulation and built cheap reactors each reactor might cost -1 billion dollars to construct? Sign me up!
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China. It is all entirely full of regulations. Not labor. Material costs are probably minscule % if you scoure the entire supply chain for regulations. The discussion whether certain regulations (OSHA) are needed or not is an entirely different conversation, but having worked on large government/military contracts ($1B+); I have seen the shitshow with my own eyes and mind. Gross incompetence of Gov (and its contractors) x Regulatory Capture x Lack of Innovation = Current dysfunction. I am not saying China is the role model for safety regulations, but we need to take a deep look at what's necessary and what's not. SpaceX will make reusable rockets a few orders of magnitude cheaper than anything NASA has produced. And current NASA administration has been forthcoming in working with private industry (SpaceX, BO, Rocketlab, Firefly, etc.). Good.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    > I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China. The difference is in manufacturing and labor costs. If you want to build cheap, you can do so in Mexico at half the manufacturing and labor costs of China, which is about 1/7th that of good ol' fashioned USofA manufacturing and labor. You should have already known this. Nothing to see here.
onion2k 4y ago
Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? I feel like if you need to ask a question like "Why can't this thing be built for $20m, or 0.03% of the cited $6bn cost?" then you don't understand the problem well enough.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  This is defeatism. Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. Literally everything needs to be questioned. We can do that with humbleness and without arrogance. Last I checked, we are on a tech forum known for starting companies.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. They got there by solving some hard problems over multiple decades by understanding the domain and the difficulties in it. They didn't start by saying "Why aren't rockets 1000* cheaper?" They started by saying "What happens if we solve these problems?" and ended up with cheaper rockets. In another domain they might have had a different outcome, or failed to solve the problems.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      I can agree with that but also SpaceX absolutely started with the question "Why aren't rockets cheaper". Thus followed resuability with an question "Why are we building single use Rockets?". Either way, we should question all of this. The entire house of Nuclear industry is probably filled with bureacratic termites.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  Probably the same reason that SpaceX was able to build human rated orbital rockets with a marginal cost that’s a fraction of what came before. The incumbents are corrupt, the regulations are overbearing and bloated, the government has no interest in solving the problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter what we think, the Chinese will continue to advance and deploy the nuclear state-of-the-art and become an energy superpower, while the US and Europe debate the issue until we’re made irrelevant.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

So you're saying that if we removed the regulation and built cheap reactors each reactor might cost -1 billion dollars to construct? Sign me up!

systemvoltage 4y ago
I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China. It is all entirely full of regulations. Not labor. Material costs are probably minscule % if you scoure the entire supply chain for regulations. The discussion whether certain regulations (OSHA) are needed or not is an entirely different conversation, but having worked on large government/military contracts ($1B+); I have seen the shitshow with my own eyes and mind. Gross incompetence of Gov (and its contractors) x Regulatory Capture x Lack of Innovation = Current dysfunction. I am not saying China is the role model for safety regulations, but we need to take a deep look at what's necessary and what's not. SpaceX will make reusable rockets a few orders of magnitude cheaper than anything NASA has produced. And current NASA administration has been forthcoming in working with private industry (SpaceX, BO, Rocketlab, Firefly, etc.). Good.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China. The difference is in manufacturing and labor costs. If you want to build cheap, you can do so in Mexico at half the manufacturing and labor costs of China, which is about 1/7th that of good ol' fashioned USofA manufacturing and labor. You should have already known this. Nothing to see here.

onion2k 4y ago

Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? I feel like if you need to ask a question like "Why can't this thing be built for $20m, or 0.03% of the cited $6bn cost?" then you don't understand the problem well enough.

systemvoltage 4y ago
This is defeatism. Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. Literally everything needs to be questioned. We can do that with humbleness and without arrogance. Last I checked, we are on a tech forum known for starting companies.
- onion2k 4y ago
  Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. They got there by solving some hard problems over multiple decades by understanding the domain and the difficulties in it. They didn't start by saying "Why aren't rockets 1000* cheaper?" They started by saying "What happens if we solve these problems?" and ended up with cheaper rockets. In another domain they might have had a different outcome, or failed to solve the problems.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I can agree with that but also SpaceX absolutely started with the question "Why aren't rockets cheaper". Thus followed resuability with an question "Why are we building single use Rockets?". Either way, we should question all of this. The entire house of Nuclear industry is probably filled with bureacratic termites.
oceanplexian 4y ago
Probably the same reason that SpaceX was able to build human rated orbital rockets with a marginal cost that’s a fraction of what came before. The incumbents are corrupt, the regulations are overbearing and bloated, the government has no interest in solving the problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter what we think, the Chinese will continue to advance and deploy the nuclear state-of-the-art and become an energy superpower, while the US and Europe debate the issue until we’re made irrelevant.