6 ms·
> cost increases are mainly due to the rise in construction material prices as well as financing costs; nothing inherent to nuclear power or the novel technolog
by epistasis 4y ago
> cost increases are mainly due to the rise in construction material prices as well as financing costs; nothing inherent to nuclear power or the novel technology itself.
I would argue that construction is inherent to nuclear power, and is in fact the biggest draw back about nuclear power.
SMRs were the attempt to mitigate most of the disadvantages of a constructed product, versus a manufactured product.
There's still significant work needed to convert nuclear into a technology that has a learning curve. I think this work has some of the best insights about which technologies do or do not experience learning curves with price drops:
https://www.volts.wtf/p/learning-curves-will-lead-to-extremely https://www.volts.wtf/p/learning-curves-will-lead-to-extreme...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- theptip 4y agoYeah this is a big problem with fusion too, it requires a really big concrete footprint which limits how cheap the power can be.
- epistasis 4y agoAnd the welding, soooo much welding...
- anonuser123456 4y agoToo much concrete is probably the smallest of fusions problems. The tritium fuel cycle is pretty much impossible to solve economically. We already know hydrogen infrastructure isn’t very cost effective. So imagine radioactive hydrogen.
- pfdietz 4y agoThis is one reason (among many) to prefer Helion. It doesn't use DT, so it doesn't have the problem of closing a tritium cycle. It won't even have a lithium blanket. Tritium does get produced from DD reactions, but it can be just separated from D, stored in metal hydride beds, and allowed to decay to 3He.
- loeg 4y agoThe other major problem with fusion being, it hasn't successfully produced energy (on Earth).