5 ms·

Wikipedia succinctly puts what happened last time "scale" was tried. > By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as

Wikipedia succinctly puts what happened last time "scale" was tried. > By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.[46] [...] Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled,[50] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. > The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.[53] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...

ch4s3 4y ago
The Forbes article cited there is criticizing the American model of building nuclear but praising the French model. The difference being standardization. One could also point to South Korea as a good model. By building new plants and tinkering with both the designs and regulation the US has maximized cost, albeit while pushing the tech forward. Basically the US built almost every reactor as an R&D project over that period. We could have and still could stamp out standard designs, and then the difficulty would be in construction management. That's by no means simple stuff but it's a reasonable path forward.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  So you need to cheat on the safety side of things to be a good model? Their once grandiose plan of being a nuclear power house exporting reactors stopped at exactly the 4 reactors to UAE which was signed before the scandal. Of course to an authoritarian country. > In November 2012 it was discovered that over 5,000 small components used in five reactors at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant had not been properly certified; eight suppliers had faked 60 warranties for the parts. Two reactors were shut down for component replacement, which was likely to cause power shortages in South Korea during the winter.[24] Reuters reported this as South Korea's worst nuclear crisis, highlighting a lack of transparency on nuclear safety and the dual roles of South Korea's nuclear regulators on supervision and promotion.[25] This incident followed the prosecution of five senior engineers for the coverup of a serious loss of power and cooling incident at Kori Nuclear Power Plant, which was subsequently graded at INES level 2.[24][26] > In 2013, there was a scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts in nuclear plants and faked quality assurance certificates. In June 2013 Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1 were shut down, and Kori 1 and Shin Wolsong 2 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[27] Control cabling in the first APR-1400s under construction had to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[28] In October 2013 about 100 people were indicted for falsifying safety documents, including a former chief executive of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and a vice-president of Korea Electric Power Corporation.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea
  - mlyle 4y ago
    No-- but there is a middle ground between institutional paralysis requiring safety-at-any-cost... and laissez-faire, safety-be-damned! Ever since local NY authorities prevented a distant completed reactor from ever being operated by refusing to write a regulation-mandated evacuation plan, it's been mostly impossible to build nuclear in the US. Why put lots of capital at risk when rules might change and it can be decided "ehhhh, nevermind, you can't operate!" at the end of the process years later.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    You’re arguing against a straw man. I’m not advocating sacrificing safety. Nuclear in the US is regulated to a level of safety far more stringent than any other industry and out of line with the actual danger. Moreover the regulations change frequently and safety reviews of new designs get rejected without comment or feedback. Many of these regulations were written and devised by people specifically trying to tank the industry. We could take an approach that is more neutral to nuclear and base regulations on probabilistic models of risk and it would be much cheaper and just as safe.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  indeed, everyone misses the fact that, for any solution to be cost-effective you need an experienced team that have built thay before, that means: 1 - all powerplants should be identical, so you can work out problems on reactor 1 and have no probpems by the time you are building reactor 55. The US model of private companies building random shit doesnt fit well. Thats how wind and solar work - they build thousands of identical solar panels and wind turbines 2 - you cant start and stop construction - if you stopped building for 10 years, your engineers have left, retired or died. Now you build a new reactor, and you are goong to have inexperienced people making the same mistakes. you have to have an institution that is building non-stop for 20 years, like china does. thats also why wind and solar works - the same teams of people were installing and servicing turbined for decades 3 - factory made - manufacturing of wind and solar is automated to a large degree. Automation in construction is ~0%. Whether you are building a house or a reactor, they are expensive manual labour. Some of this might be solved with prefab buildings, some might be solved with Small Moduper reactors, but approached require large investment and long-term commitment
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I’m not sure they all have to be the same, but settling on a few standard designs would help a lot. SMRs might be good in some cases whereas in other situations a larger plant would make sense. I think privately constructed and run plants would be fine if the regulations were clear and didn’t change so frequently.

ch4s3 4y ago

The Forbes article cited there is criticizing the American model of building nuclear but praising the French model. The difference being standardization. One could also point to South Korea as a good model. By building new plants and tinkering with both the designs and regulation the US has maximized cost, albeit while pushing the tech forward. Basically the US built almost every reactor as an R&D project over that period. We could have and still could stamp out standard designs, and then the difficulty would be in construction management. That's by no means simple stuff but it's a reasonable path forward.

Gwypaas 4y ago
So you need to cheat on the safety side of things to be a good model? Their once grandiose plan of being a nuclear power house exporting reactors stopped at exactly the 4 reactors to UAE which was signed before the scandal. Of course to an authoritarian country. > In November 2012 it was discovered that over 5,000 small components used in five reactors at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant had not been properly certified; eight suppliers had faked 60 warranties for the parts. Two reactors were shut down for component replacement, which was likely to cause power shortages in South Korea during the winter.[24] Reuters reported this as South Korea's worst nuclear crisis, highlighting a lack of transparency on nuclear safety and the dual roles of South Korea's nuclear regulators on supervision and promotion.[25] This incident followed the prosecution of five senior engineers for the coverup of a serious loss of power and cooling incident at Kori Nuclear Power Plant, which was subsequently graded at INES level 2.[24][26] > In 2013, there was a scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts in nuclear plants and faked quality assurance certificates. In June 2013 Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1 were shut down, and Kori 1 and Shin Wolsong 2 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[27] Control cabling in the first APR-1400s under construction had to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[28] In October 2013 about 100 people were indicted for falsifying safety documents, including a former chief executive of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and a vice-president of Korea Electric Power Corporation.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea
- mlyle 4y ago
  No-- but there is a middle ground between institutional paralysis requiring safety-at-any-cost... and laissez-faire, safety-be-damned! Ever since local NY authorities prevented a distant completed reactor from ever being operated by refusing to write a regulation-mandated evacuation plan, it's been mostly impossible to build nuclear in the US. Why put lots of capital at risk when rules might change and it can be decided "ehhhh, nevermind, you can't operate!" at the end of the process years later.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  You’re arguing against a straw man. I’m not advocating sacrificing safety. Nuclear in the US is regulated to a level of safety far more stringent than any other industry and out of line with the actual danger. Moreover the regulations change frequently and safety reviews of new designs get rejected without comment or feedback. Many of these regulations were written and devised by people specifically trying to tank the industry. We could take an approach that is more neutral to nuclear and base regulations on probabilistic models of risk and it would be much cheaper and just as safe.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
indeed, everyone misses the fact that, for any solution to be cost-effective you need an experienced team that have built thay before, that means: 1 - all powerplants should be identical, so you can work out problems on reactor 1 and have no probpems by the time you are building reactor 55. The US model of private companies building random shit doesnt fit well. Thats how wind and solar work - they build thousands of identical solar panels and wind turbines 2 - you cant start and stop construction - if you stopped building for 10 years, your engineers have left, retired or died. Now you build a new reactor, and you are goong to have inexperienced people making the same mistakes. you have to have an institution that is building non-stop for 20 years, like china does. thats also why wind and solar works - the same teams of people were installing and servicing turbined for decades 3 - factory made - manufacturing of wind and solar is automated to a large degree. Automation in construction is ~0%. Whether you are building a house or a reactor, they are expensive manual labour. Some of this might be solved with prefab buildings, some might be solved with Small Moduper reactors, but approached require large investment and long-term commitment
- ch4s3 4y ago
  I’m not sure they all have to be the same, but settling on a few standard designs would help a lot. SMRs might be good in some cases whereas in other situations a larger plant would make sense. I think privately constructed and run plants would be fine if the regulations were clear and didn’t change so frequently.