4 ms·

Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part II

34 points by jseliger 4y ago

tomohawk 4y ago
> an analysis of cost overruns of the David-Besse power plant, which was budgeted at $136 million at the start of construction in 1967, and ultimately cost $650 million when completed in 1977, found that “NRC modifications and their chain effects” were responsible for over 60% of the total cost. By contrast, the lower construction costs of French plants during the same period have been attributed to a “lack of changes during construction.” And it hasn't gotten any better since 1977.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Well part of it is the nuclear industry was started by total geniuses like Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Szílard, and Bohr. So now you have to pass the baton to lesser geniuses, or ordinary everyday Americans who eg were on Navy submarines, and want to work civilian (with clearance, it's semi-civilian). There's a bit of an impedance mismatch right there, Hungarian genius mathematicians to apple-pie-eating American whites--generally men because of the radiation--who like, they're smart, they're gifted, but they're not monstrosities of raw intellect.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    No. Cost overruns are the whole point of the project, for many involved. Completion is unnecessary and, for many who have a say, undesirable. This is one of the reasons SMR will not gain traction in the US. There is less scope for wholly-legal corruption. The main reason will be that nukes are among the most expensive methods known for generating power, and there is no way to cut cost enough to match better alternatives.
    - daniel-cussen 4y ago
      You know what there's truth in that but they still have to come up with electricity for their long-term career viability. And they're happy when it happens, they have a little event to celebrate completion, internally. Like breaking a bottle on a ship, that ship may have been contructed in a corrupt manner--don't count on it being so--but when it's fresh out of the shipyard, before it first sails, you break the bottle on it. IT HAS TO FLOAT FOR THE BOTTLE. And secondly a big thing is producing plutonium for the weapons program, they can't just fuck that up. America is a plutonium-exporting country, go right ahead and piss us off bad, like twice as pissed as after 9/11, really fuck us off, and we'll export to you anywhere in the world, even the base at the South Pole, even in space. I think the big thing that altered that was The Simpsons, which killed recruiting for nuclear engineers and nuclear scientists at all levels.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        There certainly are people whose careers depend on actually delivering power, eventually. They are disappointed when construction is delayed, and finally cancelled. But the majority who have any say don't care, so long as enough money changes hands. Civil reactors are not producing plutonium, for anybody. That needs cold neutrons. Probably what killed recruiting for nuke careers was, rather, Chernobyl and Fukushima. But it is remarkable how what was actually done at Santa Susana resembles the Simpsons' portrayal.
jseliger 4y ago
Part I: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31682361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31682361
ncmncm 4y ago
The mechanisms used to drive up nuke construction cost are well studied, but those don't touch on the motivation: corruption and graft. Once construction is in full swing, a firehose of money begins to pour in. Completing the project on time and budget would cut off that influx. Nobody actually involved wants that ever to happen. (Anyway, not until the kids graduate college.) So, ways are found to extend the project and drive up cost. Many of these are baked in at the start: any huge public-works project needs buy-in from numerous gatekeepers, each of whom demands something in exchange, a piece of the action. So, even the originally estimated cost has been inflated on their behalf. We see the same for urban tunnels and, often, bridges, and always in military procurement and, lately, manned spaceflight. Solar and wind farm projects have been relatively free of such activity, so far. Partly this is because expected cost is easy to estimate: $X per unit, times Y units; and people involved might be more altruistic. But no doubt ways will be found, in time, to get hooks into those, maybe as installations get more complicated, e.g. stirring in storage and transmission. The main thing enabling all this is that the corruption channels have been made wholly legal. There is no one to indict. When the nuke project is finally cancelled after $billions in overruns, nobody ever gets any of the money back.
- f0e4c2f7 4y ago
  I find this topic to be interesting and important. Any reccomended reading further detailing it, suggestions on fixing it, or stories about countries that have done better or worse with this problem? The book The Power Broker by Robert Caro talks about this subject a little in an indirect way.
  - TheDudeMan 4y ago
    It's very easy to fix: Produce tiny reactors on an assembly line.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      That is part of why there will be no market for them. The main reason, though, is that their operating cost is way too high to compete in a fair market. All existing reactors have relied on having the fix in: heavily subsidized or ratepayers compelled to pay above market rates, most usually both.
zajio1am 4y ago
I wonder what part of costs of QA/QC requirements is inherent, and what part is just due to being special thing not common in the rest of industry. Seems to me that with computerized tracking, similar levels of QA requirements could be embraced by whole industry.

34 points by jseliger 4y ago

> an analysis of cost overruns of the David-Besse power plant, which was budgeted at $136 million at the start of construction in 1967, and ultimately cost $650 million when completed in 1977, found that “NRC modifications and their chain effects” were responsible for over 60% of the total cost. By contrast, the lower construction costs of French plants during the same period have been attributed to a “lack of changes during construction.” And it hasn't gotten any better since 1977.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
Well part of it is the nuclear industry was started by total geniuses like Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Szílard, and Bohr. So now you have to pass the baton to lesser geniuses, or ordinary everyday Americans who eg were on Navy submarines, and want to work civilian (with clearance, it's semi-civilian). There's a bit of an impedance mismatch right there, Hungarian genius mathematicians to apple-pie-eating American whites--generally men because of the radiation--who like, they're smart, they're gifted, but they're not monstrosities of raw intellect.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  No. Cost overruns are the whole point of the project, for many involved. Completion is unnecessary and, for many who have a say, undesirable. This is one of the reasons SMR will not gain traction in the US. There is less scope for wholly-legal corruption. The main reason will be that nukes are among the most expensive methods known for generating power, and there is no way to cut cost enough to match better alternatives.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    You know what there's truth in that but they still have to come up with electricity for their long-term career viability. And they're happy when it happens, they have a little event to celebrate completion, internally. Like breaking a bottle on a ship, that ship may have been contructed in a corrupt manner--don't count on it being so--but when it's fresh out of the shipyard, before it first sails, you break the bottle on it. IT HAS TO FLOAT FOR THE BOTTLE. And secondly a big thing is producing plutonium for the weapons program, they can't just fuck that up. America is a plutonium-exporting country, go right ahead and piss us off bad, like twice as pissed as after 9/11, really fuck us off, and we'll export to you anywhere in the world, even the base at the South Pole, even in space. I think the big thing that altered that was The Simpsons, which killed recruiting for nuclear engineers and nuclear scientists at all levels.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      There certainly are people whose careers depend on actually delivering power, eventually. They are disappointed when construction is delayed, and finally cancelled. But the majority who have any say don't care, so long as enough money changes hands. Civil reactors are not producing plutonium, for anybody. That needs cold neutrons. Probably what killed recruiting for nuke careers was, rather, Chernobyl and Fukushima. But it is remarkable how what was actually done at Santa Susana resembles the Simpsons' portrayal.

jseliger 4y ago

Part I: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31682361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31682361

ncmncm 4y ago

The mechanisms used to drive up nuke construction cost are well studied, but those don't touch on the motivation: corruption and graft. Once construction is in full swing, a firehose of money begins to pour in. Completing the project on time and budget would cut off that influx. Nobody actually involved wants that ever to happen. (Anyway, not until the kids graduate college.) So, ways are found to extend the project and drive up cost. Many of these are baked in at the start: any huge public-works project needs buy-in from numerous gatekeepers, each of whom demands something in exchange, a piece of the action. So, even the originally estimated cost has been inflated on their behalf. We see the same for urban tunnels and, often, bridges, and always in military procurement and, lately, manned spaceflight. Solar and wind farm projects have been relatively free of such activity, so far. Partly this is because expected cost is easy to estimate: $X per unit, times Y units; and people involved might be more altruistic. But no doubt ways will be found, in time, to get hooks into those, maybe as installations get more complicated, e.g. stirring in storage and transmission. The main thing enabling all this is that the corruption channels have been made wholly legal. There is no one to indict. When the nuke project is finally cancelled after $billions in overruns, nobody ever gets any of the money back.

f0e4c2f7 4y ago
I find this topic to be interesting and important. Any reccomended reading further detailing it, suggestions on fixing it, or stories about countries that have done better or worse with this problem? The book The Power Broker by Robert Caro talks about this subject a little in an indirect way.
- TheDudeMan 4y ago
  It's very easy to fix: Produce tiny reactors on an assembly line.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    That is part of why there will be no market for them. The main reason, though, is that their operating cost is way too high to compete in a fair market. All existing reactors have relied on having the fix in: heavily subsidized or ratepayers compelled to pay above market rates, most usually both.

zajio1am 4y ago

I wonder what part of costs of QA/QC requirements is inherent, and what part is just due to being special thing not common in the rest of industry. Seems to me that with computerized tracking, similar levels of QA requirements could be embraced by whole industry.