3 ms·
There's no conspiracy here -- the nuclear safety is just so darn expensive, and for rational reasons. It is safer, yes, but only once a lot of resources is spe
by deepsun 4y ago
There's no conspiracy here -- the nuclear safety is just so darn expensive, and for rational reasons.
It is safer, yes, but only once a lot of resources is spent on safety. So nuclear power generation is very inexpensive and expensive at the same time, depending on amount of effort put into its safety (with modern scientific knowledge on fission, I'd say like 90% of a reactor cost is ensuring its safety).
I honestly hoped that NuScale production could reduce some significant fraction of that safety costs by "commoditizing" the production. Kinda like airplanes are very safe in a big part because their production and maintenance processes are streamlined and actively practiced ("economy of scale").
- adastra22 4y agoYou can read about the NRC's stance on requiring radiation to be "as low as is reasonably achievable" here: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1610/ML16105A136.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1610/ML16105A136.pdf ALARA, in practice, has been interpreted by the NRC as to mean "radiation levels as low as can be achievable while still being competitive with alternative energy sources." Which means that the cost of nuclear goes up until it matches or exceeds traditional baseloads (coal, gas, etc.).