7 ms·

They looked at the price tags of these reactors vs solar and wind, and chose the lowest number, fine. But I've never heard of a nuclear project coming in at un

They looked at the price tags of these reactors vs solar and wind, and chose the lowest number, fine. But I've never heard of a nuclear project coming in at under multiple times its original estimate, and taking a decade or more longer than expected. Has any new nuclear power come online anywhere since Fukushima?

vondro 4y ago
Olkiluoto EPR reactor in Finland was connected to the grid in March this year. There are 2 more EPRs in construction, in France and UK. So yes, there were new power plants coming online, but after budget overruns and missed timelines. Anyway, nuclear is still great baseline source of energy, so pity we don't build it better.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  Olkiluoto isn't fully online yet, that's expected to happen in December after it didn't pass trials and required repairs. It would then be 13 years late and cost about four times what was planned. The other two are looking like they're going in a similar direction.
  - ttul 4y ago
    Thirteen years late and four times over budget for the first new plant in Finland in 42 years. I bet if they build a second one, it won’t take so long nor be so over-budget. In the UK, the Hinkley Point C project is over-budget and late, partly because they had problems with their initial concrete pours that necessitated exceptionally costly and time-consuming rebuilds. But as Hinkley gets closer to completion, the lessons learned are being transferred to Sizewell C, another EDF plant. [1] The world needs these large nuclear plants and we can’t just give up because the first few constructed went over budget and took too long. [1] https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/06/23/energy-security-gives-climate-friendly-nuclear-power-plants-a-new-appeal https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/06/23/energy-securit...
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      The lesson learned is there are sizeable overruns to be reaped on Sizewell, too, and not to be passed up. The world is notably worse for these projects diverting money away from renewables that would have already been displacing carbon emissions for a decade by now.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > Anyway, nuclear is still great baseline source of energy, so pity we don't build it better. In what way? For the price that they actually cost after construction you can get double the capacity in wind, and double the capacity in solar, and a CAES plant capable of storing several days of energy at the same capacity, and the same capacity in a combined cycle gas plant, and a redox flow battery with 12 hours of storage, and a hydrogen electrolyser capable of producing enough hydrogen or methane to run the gas plant with change left over. All so you can make your energy infrastructure beholden to one fuel supplier where your country is not allowed to produce any yourself. Then you have to find somewhere to put the waste for millenia. And that only if you're on the short list of countries that the US, China, or France will even sell fuel to.
  - ztratar 4y ago
    Can you show any sources for "same price = double the capacity in <renewable> + CAES storage"? That's a lofty claim and I have heard CAES storage at economic scales is still unsolved, else we'd see a rocketship company in the space. If you do know of a stealthy rocketship here, who is it?
    - usrusr 4y ago
      The reason you don't see "rocketship" investment is because the problem isn't hard enough, no matter how well you solve it you wouldn't be anywhere close to virtual monopoly. But despite that, hydrostor.ca got an investment of a quarter billion earlier this year, and they already started projects for A-CAES facilities in the GWh range (comparable to smaller pumped hydro) when their funding was less than a tenth of that (I suppose actual projects wouldn't be included in that funding, I think they see themselves as a project specialist, not as an owner/operator even if some/most/all current projects seem to be subsidiaries, perhaps a bit like spacex/starlink if you like space analogies).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - weberer 4y ago
    You know Finland gets like 2 hours of sunlight in the winter. Its not a particularly windy place either.
- percevalve 4y ago
  For the EPR, you also had the Chinese Units, Taishan, that were started after but got connected to the grid before. https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=918 https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.... Other significant projects to check is the building by KEPCO and ENEC, I think BARAKAH-1 was the first unit connected: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=1050 https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.... There are a lot of teams working on this issue, like Oklo: https://oklo.com https://oklo.com
  - wnkrshm 4y ago
    There are some wonderful stories with the EPR, like falsification of material analysis records [0]. [0] https://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/asn-informs/news-releases/falsification-of-materials-analysis-reports-asn-is-collaborating-with-the-ongoing-judicial-inquiry https://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/asn-informs/news-releas...
    - percevalve 4y ago
      This is for a completely different reactor, "Equipment intended for the Jules Horowitz research reactor" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Horowitz_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Horowitz_Reactor
- thepangolino 4y ago
wewxjfq 4y ago
Right, unlike wind and solar, the predicted cost of a nuclear SMR is not based on real-world data, you have to take the word of the vendor who is selling it to you.
hannob 4y ago
Was also the first thing that I noted. They're comparing fictional nuclear prices with real renewable prices. One more thing though that makes this calculation even more ridiculous: They're comparing today's wind+solar prices with a tech that's supposed to be available in the 2030s. Like, they're assuming wind+solar won't progress in the next 10 years. That's... a very unrealistic thing to assume.
- helloooooooo 4y ago
  You also have to consider distribution infrastructure. Currently, the Ontario grid is built to hand distribution from majority nuclear sources. When replacing nuclear reactors with wind and solar, it changes the centralized nature of the grid’s power source. The government then needs to invest big bucks into re-orienting the grid towards distributed distribution. Given that would mean going from one extreme to another, it’s no question why the government would feather replace nuclear with nuclear
- IMTDb 4y ago
  Bear in mind that those known renewable prices are always including the little asterisk "* prices only computed when sun is shining and wind is blowing". Renewable prices are computed as : "I put $XXX and got this much electricity during the year, so price per watt is $YYY -> renewable is cheap" That calculation is not reflective of the reality of the needs. People - and anyone in charge of maintaining a power grid - think like so : "I need YYY watts of electricity now, how much $XXX do I need to put down to get it ?" That amount is massively higher in price per watt with renewable, because renewable can sometime works at >90% of their potential, and provide cheap and abundant electricity or they can decide to work at < 1% and be completely useless. And I have never seen anyone advocating for renewable that is willing to say "Please do cut my home line to save electricity when it's dark and windless - even in November - if batteries are low. I think it's better than building reliable backup supply". Nuclear is the preferred choice here because you are going to get electricity in those situation at the push of a button. Maybe prices will be higher than the price per watt of renewable, but it will provide electricity when no amount of wind farms and solar panels are going to do the job. Meaning when prices of renewable are approaching infinity. In that case, expensive nuclear is still cheaper than failing renewable. Batteries can help renewable, but no one in anywhere near the ability to store energy for a whole country for weeks in cold countries, when days are very short and wind can just decide to stop blowing. There are other options than nuclear - like the usual coal, gas and oil, but they have their own problems - like CO2 emission. Other options include geothermal and hydro but they have ecological aspects as well, and tend to be more expensive than nuclear.
percevalve 4y ago
There are actually quite a lot of them, the AIEA maintains the PRIS database: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/ https://pris.iaea.org/pris/ You will see a lot of them being connected to the grid since.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Plus you could get those renewable systems online tomorrow (or get them much much cheaper in 2030), vs nuclear where you pay today and then just hope it doesn't massively overrun time and budget...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  And, pay out for NG for the ten years what it would have cost for the renewables to start generating immediately.
fenk85 4y ago
einpoklum 4y ago
> and chose the lowest number, fine. This is not fine, for multiple reasons: 1. Nuclear is probably not the lowest number. See Lazard's analysis of levelized energy costs: https://www.lazard.com/media/451881/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-150-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451881/lazards-levelized-cost-o... on the whole / on the average, Nuclear in 20221 is $167 / MWh while solar is $36 and wind is $38. Now, granted, maybe these mini-reactors are cheaper than the average, and maybe solar and wind are effectively more expensive etc. - but I doubt it's that much of a difference; and the figures quoted are not "levelized costs", so they may be neglecting various factors, such as maintenance of older reactors or waste storage (which needs to happen for hunderds or thousands of years). 2. The reason you yourself gave - "over schedule, over budget" : Even if you want to choose what's cheapest, it can't be what's cheapest as proposed, but what's cheapest as projected to cost. 3. Price is not everything. On the one hand, there's the question of availability of the renewables (e.g. you might need some storage as well); and on the other, there are the grave safety concerns from nuclear reactors. 4. Price is not everything. II : Greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear is not "emission-free", since you need to count emissions due to Uranium-mining and processing, not just the electricity generating reaction. IIANM, there are significant emissions to take into account as well relative to solar, wind, geothermal etc.
Tsarbomb 4y ago
You can be skeptical all you want but given that most of Ontario's power already comes from Nuclear, and Ontario operates the largest nuclear facility in the world by both reactors and output, you are yelling into the wind.

vondro 4y ago

Olkiluoto EPR reactor in Finland was connected to the grid in March this year. There are 2 more EPRs in construction, in France and UK. So yes, there were new power plants coming online, but after budget overruns and missed timelines. Anyway, nuclear is still great baseline source of energy, so pity we don't build it better.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
Olkiluoto isn't fully online yet, that's expected to happen in December after it didn't pass trials and required repairs. It would then be 13 years late and cost about four times what was planned. The other two are looking like they're going in a similar direction.
- ttul 4y ago
  Thirteen years late and four times over budget for the first new plant in Finland in 42 years. I bet if they build a second one, it won’t take so long nor be so over-budget. In the UK, the Hinkley Point C project is over-budget and late, partly because they had problems with their initial concrete pours that necessitated exceptionally costly and time-consuming rebuilds. But as Hinkley gets closer to completion, the lessons learned are being transferred to Sizewell C, another EDF plant. [1] The world needs these large nuclear plants and we can’t just give up because the first few constructed went over budget and took too long. [1] https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/06/23/energy-security-gives-climate-friendly-nuclear-power-plants-a-new-appeal https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/06/23/energy-securit...
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    The lesson learned is there are sizeable overruns to be reaped on Sizewell, too, and not to be passed up. The world is notably worse for these projects diverting money away from renewables that would have already been displacing carbon emissions for a decade by now.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> Anyway, nuclear is still great baseline source of energy, so pity we don't build it better. In what way? For the price that they actually cost after construction you can get double the capacity in wind, and double the capacity in solar, and a CAES plant capable of storing several days of energy at the same capacity, and the same capacity in a combined cycle gas plant, and a redox flow battery with 12 hours of storage, and a hydrogen electrolyser capable of producing enough hydrogen or methane to run the gas plant with change left over. All so you can make your energy infrastructure beholden to one fuel supplier where your country is not allowed to produce any yourself. Then you have to find somewhere to put the waste for millenia. And that only if you're on the short list of countries that the US, China, or France will even sell fuel to.
- ztratar 4y ago
  Can you show any sources for "same price = double the capacity in <renewable> + CAES storage"? That's a lofty claim and I have heard CAES storage at economic scales is still unsolved, else we'd see a rocketship company in the space. If you do know of a stealthy rocketship here, who is it?
  - usrusr 4y ago
    The reason you don't see "rocketship" investment is because the problem isn't hard enough, no matter how well you solve it you wouldn't be anywhere close to virtual monopoly. But despite that, hydrostor.ca got an investment of a quarter billion earlier this year, and they already started projects for A-CAES facilities in the GWh range (comparable to smaller pumped hydro) when their funding was less than a tenth of that (I suppose actual projects wouldn't be included in that funding, I think they see themselves as a project specialist, not as an owner/operator even if some/most/all current projects seem to be subsidiaries, perhaps a bit like spacex/starlink if you like space analogies).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- weberer 4y ago
  You know Finland gets like 2 hours of sunlight in the winter. Its not a particularly windy place either.
percevalve 4y ago
For the EPR, you also had the Chinese Units, Taishan, that were started after but got connected to the grid before. https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=918 https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.... Other significant projects to check is the building by KEPCO and ENEC, I think BARAKAH-1 was the first unit connected: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=1050 https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.... There are a lot of teams working on this issue, like Oklo: https://oklo.com https://oklo.com
- wnkrshm 4y ago
  There are some wonderful stories with the EPR, like falsification of material analysis records [0]. [0] https://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/asn-informs/news-releases/falsification-of-materials-analysis-reports-asn-is-collaborating-with-the-ongoing-judicial-inquiry https://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/asn-informs/news-releas...
  - percevalve 4y ago
    This is for a completely different reactor, "Equipment intended for the Jules Horowitz research reactor" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Horowitz_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Horowitz_Reactor
thepangolino 4y ago

wewxjfq 4y ago

Right, unlike wind and solar, the predicted cost of a nuclear SMR is not based on real-world data, you have to take the word of the vendor who is selling it to you.

hannob 4y ago

Was also the first thing that I noted. They're comparing fictional nuclear prices with real renewable prices. One more thing though that makes this calculation even more ridiculous: They're comparing today's wind+solar prices with a tech that's supposed to be available in the 2030s. Like, they're assuming wind+solar won't progress in the next 10 years. That's... a very unrealistic thing to assume.

helloooooooo 4y ago
You also have to consider distribution infrastructure. Currently, the Ontario grid is built to hand distribution from majority nuclear sources. When replacing nuclear reactors with wind and solar, it changes the centralized nature of the grid’s power source. The government then needs to invest big bucks into re-orienting the grid towards distributed distribution. Given that would mean going from one extreme to another, it’s no question why the government would feather replace nuclear with nuclear
IMTDb 4y ago
Bear in mind that those known renewable prices are always including the little asterisk "* prices only computed when sun is shining and wind is blowing". Renewable prices are computed as : "I put $XXX and got this much electricity during the year, so price per watt is $YYY -> renewable is cheap" That calculation is not reflective of the reality of the needs. People - and anyone in charge of maintaining a power grid - think like so : "I need YYY watts of electricity now, how much $XXX do I need to put down to get it ?" That amount is massively higher in price per watt with renewable, because renewable can sometime works at >90% of their potential, and provide cheap and abundant electricity or they can decide to work at < 1% and be completely useless. And I have never seen anyone advocating for renewable that is willing to say "Please do cut my home line to save electricity when it's dark and windless - even in November - if batteries are low. I think it's better than building reliable backup supply". Nuclear is the preferred choice here because you are going to get electricity in those situation at the push of a button. Maybe prices will be higher than the price per watt of renewable, but it will provide electricity when no amount of wind farms and solar panels are going to do the job. Meaning when prices of renewable are approaching infinity. In that case, expensive nuclear is still cheaper than failing renewable. Batteries can help renewable, but no one in anywhere near the ability to store energy for a whole country for weeks in cold countries, when days are very short and wind can just decide to stop blowing. There are other options than nuclear - like the usual coal, gas and oil, but they have their own problems - like CO2 emission. Other options include geothermal and hydro but they have ecological aspects as well, and tend to be more expensive than nuclear.

percevalve 4y ago

There are actually quite a lot of them, the AIEA maintains the PRIS database: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/ https://pris.iaea.org/pris/ You will see a lot of them being connected to the grid since.

LatteLazy 4y ago

Plus you could get those renewable systems online tomorrow (or get them much much cheaper in 2030), vs nuclear where you pay today and then just hope it doesn't massively overrun time and budget...

ncmncm 4y ago
And, pay out for NG for the ten years what it would have cost for the renewables to start generating immediately.

fenk85 4y ago

einpoklum 4y ago

> and chose the lowest number, fine. This is not fine, for multiple reasons: 1. Nuclear is probably not the lowest number. See Lazard's analysis of levelized energy costs: https://www.lazard.com/media/451881/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-150-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451881/lazards-levelized-cost-o... on the whole / on the average, Nuclear in 20221 is $167 / MWh while solar is $36 and wind is $38. Now, granted, maybe these mini-reactors are cheaper than the average, and maybe solar and wind are effectively more expensive etc. - but I doubt it's that much of a difference; and the figures quoted are not "levelized costs", so they may be neglecting various factors, such as maintenance of older reactors or waste storage (which needs to happen for hunderds or thousands of years). 2. The reason you yourself gave - "over schedule, over budget" : Even if you want to choose what's cheapest, it can't be what's cheapest as proposed, but what's cheapest as projected to cost. 3. Price is not everything. On the one hand, there's the question of availability of the renewables (e.g. you might need some storage as well); and on the other, there are the grave safety concerns from nuclear reactors. 4. Price is not everything. II : Greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear is not "emission-free", since you need to count emissions due to Uranium-mining and processing, not just the electricity generating reaction. IIANM, there are significant emissions to take into account as well relative to solar, wind, geothermal etc.

Tsarbomb 4y ago

You can be skeptical all you want but given that most of Ontario's power already comes from Nuclear, and Ontario operates the largest nuclear facility in the world by both reactors and output, you are yelling into the wind.