4 ms·
What's your point? The guy doesn't have a few billion to single handedly throw at the problem to test them out. There are feasible solutions to make it less exp
by S201 4y ago
What's your point? The guy doesn't have a few billion to single handedly throw at the problem to test them out. There are feasible solutions to make it less expensive, whether or not they get put into practice is a different topic. The point is that nuclear is not inherently and permanently as expensive as it has been for the past few decades.
> And it didn't address the time scale issue at all.
The time scale issue is directly related to the cost issue. Costs are so high not due to material costs, but because of the engineering and construction overheads. Standardize the designs, streamline the approval processes and both construction time & costs will decrease.
And to your solar point, until there's a viable way to store the energy that solar produces it's not a solution on its own regardless of how cheap it is. Same goes for any renewable that doesn't have the on-demand characteristic of nuclear.
To be clear: I'm not saying to not use solar. I'm saying to build solar, wind, nuclear, AND whatever else. I honestly don't really care how expensive any of them are anymore because the costs of not stopping carbon emissions will be far higher than the cost of building these renewable/nuclear generating stations.
- megaman821 4y agoHow can the design be standardized? Each location has its own risks to deal with. Extreme heat in Arizona, earthquakes in California, flooding in Florida. Every nuclear plant is a bit different. There is no economics of scale when building nuclear plants.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agothis is not true, designs for Wind turbines and solar panels are standardised. Reactor designs in China and France are standardised. There are suitability requirements towards the site ofcourse, that is normal
- S201 4y agoReactor designs such as the AP1000 can be and are standardized. > Extreme heat in Arizona, earthquakes in California, flooding in Florida. Earthquakes happen everywhere to varying degrees and flooding typically doesn't happen with some warning. I'm not sure about extreme heat being a large problem? If it is, then don't build there. Build elsewhere and then build powerlines to get the power where it's needed. Sure, different areas involve different threats, but you can make a set of designs that work in different areas instead of doing bespoke designs for every one. > There is no economics of scale when building nuclear plants. There is to a certain degree. Consider the Vogtle 3 & 4 project. It was hugely over budget in costs and time. Westinghouse went bankrupt during its construction. One (of many) reasons for this was the lack of nuclear construction knowledge left in the US because we stopped building reactors. There are other pending nuclear projects that will now benefit from the knowledge and experience that was re-learned from the Vogtle project. Having an active industry most certainly does bring some economies of scale to life.