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To quote the first link (note: it's from 2014): --- start quote --- Most nuclear power plants incurred time overruns, due to both engineering issues and publi

To quote the first link (note: it's from 2014): --- start quote --- Most nuclear power plants incurred time overruns, due to both engineering issues and public opposition. Considering the long development times of such plants and the large amount of capital required, these time overruns likely caused large increases in interest charges and contributed significantly to the large levels of overruns seen [29]. Moreover, as Table 3 indicates, the most severe cost overruns for nuclear power were confined to the United States and the 1980s, it is likely that they were significantly influenced by the nuclear power accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. These accidents resulted in “regulatory ratcheting” where safety requirements were significantly altered in the middle of construction periods, with meaningful impacts on equipment needs, construction designs, labor, and materials. --- end quote --- After nearly 30 years of FUD and underinvestment I'm not surprised these projects now take longer. There's regulatory capture, political issues etc. It's possible that they now require safety levels way beyond any reason (Fukushima, commissioned in 1971, and hit by an earthquake and a tsunami at or exceding its safety baseline resulted in 1 death directly attributable to the accident). Unfortunately, there are very few good-faith discussions around nuclear power, it's always emotionaly charged and manipulative. That's why you end up in situations like Germany: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396

matthewdgreen 3y ago
Look, you are obviously very passionate about nuclear power. And you may be right that nuclear's bad economics stem from unfairness. And it might even be true that there is some hypothetical world where people stop being so unfair, and in that world good/safe nuclear will suddenly become cheap for the first time ever. But we have to live in the real world, and here in the real world we need to build an enormous amount of low-carbon power generation in a ridiculously short amount of time. And right now nuclear prices are not comparable to wind/solar prices as we actually build nuclear today. This holds even when you apply the most generous assumptions when comparing them. And non-nuclear renewables are getting cheaper every day, something that just isn't happening to nuclear. So fine, build some nuclear around the edges. Baseload is great! But people need to recognize that short of a political and technological revolution of which there is currently no sign whatsoever, solar/wind/storage are going to form the bulk of a decarbonized grid. So let's please get on with making that happen quickly, because every month we burn fossil fuels brings more future devastation.
- illiarian 3y ago
  > But we have to live in the real world, and here in the real world we need to build an enormous amount of low-carbon power generation in a ridiculously short amount of time. We do. Moreover, we need to overbuild those sources by yet nknown amounts because they are intermittent. > This holds even when you apply the most generous assumptions when comparing them. And non-nuclear renewables are getting cheaper every day, something that just isn't happening to nuclear. Are they getting cheaper enough? Including all the required overbuilding and all the (yet non-existent) grid-scale storage that is required for renewable energy? > So fine, build some nuclear around the edges. Baseload is great! Indeed. Baseload is great. And when talking about renewables their proponents almost never talk about it. Or about daily power fluctuations. About requirement spikes etc. Because we just have to believe that there's some magical solution just around the corner. And yeah, that revolution you're talking about is definitely not going to happen precisely of the emotionally-charged discourse. And we don't really need a tech. revolution for nuclear. We're already pretty capable of building them quickly, given the political will. The great renewable project project we're talking about? It started in 2018. On top of that "As of November 2021, [cable production] production is planned to start in 2024, and it will take four years to produce the cables required by the project." [1] Expected to be completed by 2030. [2] So, about 10 years or more. On par with some nuclear stations. Expect costs overruns to be just as on par. Meanwhile in China. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant. Construction of each reactor is about 6 years. Total nameplate capacity is now 6GW. Estimated cost of construction: 16 bln USD. > So let's please get on with making that happen quickly, because every month we burn fossil fuels brings more future devastation. Meanwhile Germany shut down its nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuels. Additionally 13% of the country is given over to corn to create biofuel which is also burned. It's hard to be passionate about these moronic things. Especially since the renewable revolution needs to bring in probably as much of a technological revolution to become truly scalable (e.g. grid storage required at these scales is literally nowhere to be found). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Projec... [2] https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
  - ben_w 3y ago

matthewdgreen 3y ago

Look, you are obviously very passionate about nuclear power. And you may be right that nuclear's bad economics stem from unfairness. And it might even be true that there is some hypothetical world where people stop being so unfair, and in that world good/safe nuclear will suddenly become cheap for the first time ever. But we have to live in the real world, and here in the real world we need to build an enormous amount of low-carbon power generation in a ridiculously short amount of time. And right now nuclear prices are not comparable to wind/solar prices as we actually build nuclear today. This holds even when you apply the most generous assumptions when comparing them. And non-nuclear renewables are getting cheaper every day, something that just isn't happening to nuclear. So fine, build some nuclear around the edges. Baseload is great! But people need to recognize that short of a political and technological revolution of which there is currently no sign whatsoever, solar/wind/storage are going to form the bulk of a decarbonized grid. So let's please get on with making that happen quickly, because every month we burn fossil fuels brings more future devastation.

illiarian 3y ago
> But we have to live in the real world, and here in the real world we need to build an enormous amount of low-carbon power generation in a ridiculously short amount of time. We do. Moreover, we need to overbuild those sources by yet nknown amounts because they are intermittent. > This holds even when you apply the most generous assumptions when comparing them. And non-nuclear renewables are getting cheaper every day, something that just isn't happening to nuclear. Are they getting cheaper enough? Including all the required overbuilding and all the (yet non-existent) grid-scale storage that is required for renewable energy? > So fine, build some nuclear around the edges. Baseload is great! Indeed. Baseload is great. And when talking about renewables their proponents almost never talk about it. Or about daily power fluctuations. About requirement spikes etc. Because we just have to believe that there's some magical solution just around the corner. And yeah, that revolution you're talking about is definitely not going to happen precisely of the emotionally-charged discourse. And we don't really need a tech. revolution for nuclear. We're already pretty capable of building them quickly, given the political will. The great renewable project project we're talking about? It started in 2018. On top of that "As of November 2021, [cable production] production is planned to start in 2024, and it will take four years to produce the cables required by the project." [1] Expected to be completed by 2030. [2] So, about 10 years or more. On par with some nuclear stations. Expect costs overruns to be just as on par. Meanwhile in China. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant. Construction of each reactor is about 6 years. Total nameplate capacity is now 6GW. Estimated cost of construction: 16 bln USD. > So let's please get on with making that happen quickly, because every month we burn fossil fuels brings more future devastation. Meanwhile Germany shut down its nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuels. Additionally 13% of the country is given over to corn to create biofuel which is also burned. It's hard to be passionate about these moronic things. Especially since the renewable revolution needs to bring in probably as much of a technological revolution to become truly scalable (e.g. grid storage required at these scales is literally nowhere to be found). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco-UK_Power_Projec... [2] https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
- ben_w 3y ago