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From the article: > The only country where the costs of nuclear plant construction seem to have steadily decreased is South Korea: > The fact that South K

From the article: > The only country where the costs of nuclear plant construction seem to have steadily decreased is South Korea: > The fact that South Korea is the only country to exhibit this trend has led some experts to speculate that the cost data (which comes directly from the utility and hasn’t been independently audited) has been manipulated and we shouldn’t draw conclusions from it.

DennisP 4y ago
In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea's. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... See figure 12 for a quick overview. And from the introduction: "In contrast to the rapid cost escalation that characterized nuclear construction in the United States, we find evidence of much milder cost escalation in many countries, including absolute cost declines in some countries and specific eras. Our new findings suggest that there is no inherent cost escalation trend associated with nuclear technology."
- danans 4y ago
  > In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea That countries like Japan and Korea have similar absolute costs as India which has a 4-5x lower PPP adjusted GDP per capita suggests that the price for labor for nuclear power plant construction is globally set (relatively few qualified engineers who can demand a high price), or India uses a lot more labor, or a combination of both.
  - 8ytecoder 4y ago
    India probably uses a lot of foreign expertise. It’s either the French or the Russians that supply the reactor. That would change in the future I suppose and cost would drop. Also, corruption.
  - mayama 4y ago
    India was under nuclear sanctions until recently and had to build and design everything from scratch. Every component is made in India for PHWR which adds a lot of cost, due to r&d and economies of scale. Also, India is still not a member of NSG, due to repeatedly being blocked by China.
- mandevil 4y ago
  Japan ceased all construction of nuclear reactors in response to Fukushima daiichi, and since that was a decade ago I'm betting that all the competence they built up has disappeared. In other words, very similar to what happened in the US in response to Three Mile Island: after a scary nuclear incident there was a lengthy pause in nuclear construction which meant that all of the skills and learning-by-doing that had accumulated up to that point went away, and starting again would be significantly more expensive and subject to massive schedule and cost overruns.
jandrese 4y ago
If anything this seems to support the position that the only way to reduce costs is to increase volume. A classic economies of scale example. Instead the experts want to disregard the data for vague reasons.
- Retric 4y ago
  South Korea, Japan, and India all have similar costs which suggests South Korea isn’t benefiting significantly from continuous construction. Economies of scale generally exist, but it’s not magic. A large fraction of construction costs for nuclear power plants is very similar to other structures. A high pressure steam pipe is a high pressure steam pipe and people are constantly building structures using them.
  - clairity 4y ago
    also, quantity is the (primary) independent variable in economies of scale, and at quantities of dozens for nuclear plants, you can't get much economies, as opposed to when quantities are in the many thousands/millions.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- trashtester 4y ago
  The cost of flying has come down by 50% since 1980, and while an airplane is a simpler machine than a nuclear plant, the two industries also have a lot in common (such as the perception of risk not being in their favour). By doing international standardization and coordination in ways similar to the aircraft industry, the same should be possible for the nuclear power industry. It should be possible to consolidate most of global production down to a handful of companies (like Boing and Airbus), with a forest of subcontractors in the same way that was done for airliners, and achieve similar economies of scale. Successful designs could be re-used over a period of 20 years or more, with only minor modernizations of things like electronics, like the Airbus A320 or Boing 747. Ideally, we should have done this in 1980, but even if we start today, nuclear can provide a lot of energy at very competitive prices in the next 60-100 years. By then, we should have fusion or the ability to build energy storage cheeply enough to make renewables (probably solar) competitive.
treme 4y ago
Koreans excel in cost-efficient construction projects. Korean companies are often considered for best bang-for-buck value when developing countries are interested in big infrastructure projects nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_%C3%87anakkale_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_%C3%87anakkale_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan%E2%80%93Cavite_Interlink_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan%E2%80%93Cavite_Interlin...
bhc 4y ago
The government that was in power from 2017 to 2022 put a moratorium on new reactor construction there and promised a full phase-out, and although the newly-elected government promised to reverse this, it likely has done some damage to S. Korea's civilian nuclear capabilities.
natmaka 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

DennisP 4y ago

In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea's. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... See figure 12 for a quick overview. And from the introduction: "In contrast to the rapid cost escalation that characterized nuclear construction in the United States, we find evidence of much milder cost escalation in many countries, including absolute cost declines in some countries and specific eras. Our new findings suggest that there is no inherent cost escalation trend associated with nuclear technology."

danans 4y ago
> In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea That countries like Japan and Korea have similar absolute costs as India which has a 4-5x lower PPP adjusted GDP per capita suggests that the price for labor for nuclear power plant construction is globally set (relatively few qualified engineers who can demand a high price), or India uses a lot more labor, or a combination of both.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  India probably uses a lot of foreign expertise. It’s either the French or the Russians that supply the reactor. That would change in the future I suppose and cost would drop. Also, corruption.
- mayama 4y ago
  India was under nuclear sanctions until recently and had to build and design everything from scratch. Every component is made in India for PHWR which adds a lot of cost, due to r&d and economies of scale. Also, India is still not a member of NSG, due to repeatedly being blocked by China.
mandevil 4y ago
Japan ceased all construction of nuclear reactors in response to Fukushima daiichi, and since that was a decade ago I'm betting that all the competence they built up has disappeared. In other words, very similar to what happened in the US in response to Three Mile Island: after a scary nuclear incident there was a lengthy pause in nuclear construction which meant that all of the skills and learning-by-doing that had accumulated up to that point went away, and starting again would be significantly more expensive and subject to massive schedule and cost overruns.

jandrese 4y ago

If anything this seems to support the position that the only way to reduce costs is to increase volume. A classic economies of scale example. Instead the experts want to disregard the data for vague reasons.

Retric 4y ago
South Korea, Japan, and India all have similar costs which suggests South Korea isn’t benefiting significantly from continuous construction. Economies of scale generally exist, but it’s not magic. A large fraction of construction costs for nuclear power plants is very similar to other structures. A high pressure steam pipe is a high pressure steam pipe and people are constantly building structures using them.
- clairity 4y ago
  also, quantity is the (primary) independent variable in economies of scale, and at quantities of dozens for nuclear plants, you can't get much economies, as opposed to when quantities are in the many thousands/millions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
trashtester 4y ago
The cost of flying has come down by 50% since 1980, and while an airplane is a simpler machine than a nuclear plant, the two industries also have a lot in common (such as the perception of risk not being in their favour). By doing international standardization and coordination in ways similar to the aircraft industry, the same should be possible for the nuclear power industry. It should be possible to consolidate most of global production down to a handful of companies (like Boing and Airbus), with a forest of subcontractors in the same way that was done for airliners, and achieve similar economies of scale. Successful designs could be re-used over a period of 20 years or more, with only minor modernizations of things like electronics, like the Airbus A320 or Boing 747. Ideally, we should have done this in 1980, but even if we start today, nuclear can provide a lot of energy at very competitive prices in the next 60-100 years. By then, we should have fusion or the ability to build energy storage cheeply enough to make renewables (probably solar) competitive.

treme 4y ago

Koreans excel in cost-efficient construction projects. Korean companies are often considered for best bang-for-buck value when developing countries are interested in big infrastructure projects nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_%C3%87anakkale_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_%C3%87anakkale_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan%E2%80%93Cavite_Interlink_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan%E2%80%93Cavite_Interlin...

bhc 4y ago

The government that was in power from 2017 to 2022 put a moratorium on new reactor construction there and promised a full phase-out, and although the newly-elected government promised to reverse this, it likely has done some damage to S. Korea's civilian nuclear capabilities.

natmaka 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal