10 ms·

If it's been done before, then we don't need a "large advancement of construction productivity" to do it again. If, as the paper shows, other countries have man

If it's been done before, then we don't need a "large advancement of construction productivity" to do it again. If, as the paper shows, other countries have managed lower costs recently, then we should look at what they're doing. If the average lifespan of our existing nuclear reactors is 40 years, then setting a lifespan of more than 40 years is indeed more accurate than setting it to 25 years.

epistasis 4y ago
We live in a different technological setting than we did in the past, and all sorts of skilled labor that was economical in the past is no longer economical. As parts of the economy become more productive, labor costs rise, and the less productive parts of the economy become more expensive in comparison. We see this cost disease in all sorts of large construction projects, not just nuclear. Though nuclear seems to be particularly bad. And that's why we need breakthrough in productivity. Personally I think that such a construction productivity breakthrough would have its greatest impact on decarbonization through cheaper subway construction, high speed rail construction, and through increased urban density with cheaper big buildings. These type of construction projects have few realistic alternatives, whereas renewables plus storage are already a great way to power an energy system. So if we can fix companies like Bechtel, we will see lots of improvement throughout our society far beyond nuclear construction.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Yet there's Japan, with low nuclear costs within the past couple decades. Were their skilled labor costs all that low? High cost of large projects is certainly a general problem in the US, but it may not be due to labor costs alone. Here's a Bloomberg article that attributes it to "over-design, inefficient project management and misaligned politics." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/why-building-roads-and-transit-costs-more-in-the-u-s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/why-build... I think it's entirely possible that in the US, where we have copious wind and solar resources and we've gotten bad at doing large projects economically, nuclear is not the best option. That says little about the rest of the world, though. And it's possible that small modular reactors would help even in the US, because while we suck at big infrastructure projects, we're not too bad at high-volume production in factories. And that brings us back to fusion, because a lot of modern fusion designs would be more like factory-produced modular devices rather than large site-built infrastructure projects.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    $3/W capex, even if it could be achieved, is well north of the current cost for renewables. It anyway fails to address extraction cost, for which there is no plausible means to match renewables' near zero cost. By the time any new nukes could be brought online, capex and opex for renewables will have fallen far, far below even their most aspirational projections.

epistasis 4y ago

We live in a different technological setting than we did in the past, and all sorts of skilled labor that was economical in the past is no longer economical. As parts of the economy become more productive, labor costs rise, and the less productive parts of the economy become more expensive in comparison. We see this cost disease in all sorts of large construction projects, not just nuclear. Though nuclear seems to be particularly bad. And that's why we need breakthrough in productivity. Personally I think that such a construction productivity breakthrough would have its greatest impact on decarbonization through cheaper subway construction, high speed rail construction, and through increased urban density with cheaper big buildings. These type of construction projects have few realistic alternatives, whereas renewables plus storage are already a great way to power an energy system. So if we can fix companies like Bechtel, we will see lots of improvement throughout our society far beyond nuclear construction.

DennisP 4y ago
Yet there's Japan, with low nuclear costs within the past couple decades. Were their skilled labor costs all that low? High cost of large projects is certainly a general problem in the US, but it may not be due to labor costs alone. Here's a Bloomberg article that attributes it to "over-design, inefficient project management and misaligned politics." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/why-building-roads-and-transit-costs-more-in-the-u-s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/why-build... I think it's entirely possible that in the US, where we have copious wind and solar resources and we've gotten bad at doing large projects economically, nuclear is not the best option. That says little about the rest of the world, though. And it's possible that small modular reactors would help even in the US, because while we suck at big infrastructure projects, we're not too bad at high-volume production in factories. And that brings us back to fusion, because a lot of modern fusion designs would be more like factory-produced modular devices rather than large site-built infrastructure projects.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  $3/W capex, even if it could be achieved, is well north of the current cost for renewables. It anyway fails to address extraction cost, for which there is no plausible means to match renewables' near zero cost. By the time any new nukes could be brought online, capex and opex for renewables will have fallen far, far below even their most aspirational projections.