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Well, renewable power saw their investment increased, I think. I think the reason why the investment in nuclear power did not increase is because nuclear is ve

by cauch 4y ago

Well, renewable power saw their investment increased, I think. I think the reason why the investment in nuclear power did not increase is because nuclear is very much not an attractive investment. Such project needs a LOT of money just to start, and that will take YEARS to be finished. But the success of this project depends on variables that are extremely hard to predict: in 10 years, what will be the electricity demand curve, what will be the import and export market with other countries, or within the same country, what will be the environmental surrounding (if it turns out the river you use to provide cooling is changing, or if the site turns out to not be exactly as predicted during the initial survey, ...). If you have just one small problem in the chain, you have very expensive consequences. For example, defects in the structure may render the whole plant totally useless. And what about the workforce: you build a plant in 10 years, and when it is finished, you have only a handful of people knowing how to make it works (you cannot force people to choose specific studies if they don't want to, and forming people takes ages), so you need to increase their salary and, again, you end up with a situation were you lose money. And what if the laws change, and some subsidies that you were including in your planning disappear, or some local governance comes up with some restrictions, ..? And, on top of that, a failed nuclear power plant project will still cost you money for decades. If it never runs, you will have huge debt with absolutely nothing that can give you a bit of money back. If it runs a little bit, you will need to pay a lot to dismantle it properly. I think it's the main reason why investment in nuclear power did not increase as much as one could naively think: investors, when they look closely at it, see that it is still a huge gamble, with a big probability to be disastrous for them.

thworp 4y ago
> Such project needs a LOT of money just to start, and that will take YEARS to be finished. But the success of this project depends on variables that are extremely hard to predict: [...] You could say the same thing about chip fabs or large mines. I'd say chip fabs face even more uncertainty. While baseload electricity will always be in demand, in the chip industry your 3 billion $ fab could be completed at the bottom end of boom-bust cycle and lead you into bankruptcy.
- cauch 4y ago
  And? My point is not that nuclear plants are unique, and that no other industry shares some similarities, my point is that nuclear plants are a risky investment, and that it explains why the investment does not simply increased when the oil starts to be a problem, especially if there are strong competitors like renewables (they also have their problems, but they are competitive: their problems are not bigger than the ones of the nuclear). If fact, I could even have started my paragraph with "like chip fabs or large mines ..." without changing anything to the point I was making. That being said, I still think that even for chip fabs, small bits of a failed chip fab can still be resold more easily in order to compensate part of the loss. Same for mines: I'm sure there are uncertainties, but mines do not accumulate all the disadvantages of a nuclear power plant.

by cauch 4y ago

thworp 4y ago

> Such project needs a LOT of money just to start, and that will take YEARS to be finished. But the success of this project depends on variables that are extremely hard to predict: [...] You could say the same thing about chip fabs or large mines. I'd say chip fabs face even more uncertainty. While baseload electricity will always be in demand, in the chip industry your 3 billion $ fab could be completed at the bottom end of boom-bust cycle and lead you into bankruptcy.

cauch 4y ago
And? My point is not that nuclear plants are unique, and that no other industry shares some similarities, my point is that nuclear plants are a risky investment, and that it explains why the investment does not simply increased when the oil starts to be a problem, especially if there are strong competitors like renewables (they also have their problems, but they are competitive: their problems are not bigger than the ones of the nuclear). If fact, I could even have started my paragraph with "like chip fabs or large mines ..." without changing anything to the point I was making. That being said, I still think that even for chip fabs, small bits of a failed chip fab can still be resold more easily in order to compensate part of the loss. Same for mines: I'm sure there are uncertainties, but mines do not accumulate all the disadvantages of a nuclear power plant.