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I guess you think the Koreans and Chinese are just fundamentally different from everyone else then because they're pumping out reactors just fine, today. The F

by evilos 3y ago

I guess you think the Koreans and Chinese are just fundamentally different from everyone else then because they're pumping out reactors just fine, today. The French, Americans, Russians, and Japanese have all had periods of time where they built them quickly and cost effectively too. But then various institutional rot sets in. We're going to have to keep building big things anyways so it's not like having that capability is wasted.

epistasis 3y ago
There definitely are fundamental differences in our capabilities here, and you seem to believe the same too. Look, for example, at the challenges that are being experienced as we try to build chip fabs in the US. Instintutional knowledge and capability are real things. And I definitely think that construction capability is an important thing to build. But let's improve our construction capability on building real things that get built and improve our capabilities, such as battery factories or solar panel factories or transmission lines or other things that get build closer to on-time, and then use those contractors that succeed to try more ambitious projects. Let's not piss away billions of dollars with no sustained knowledge growth or construction capacity improvement. Trying to build even, say, 10GW of new nuclear right now would be posing away 90% of the capital. We don't even know who we would really hire for this! Until we have a track record that's strong enough to attract investment, I don't see the rush to burn money on nuclear builds. It won't help the climate, and it doesn't even help the nuclear industry.
- evilos 3y ago
  We already paid the first of a kind cost at Votgle, ordering several more AP1000s is exactly what we should do at this point. We now have a workforce that has made the mistakes and knows what not to do. If you don't want to do that, you can do what the UAE did and hire the Koreans to teach you how to build plants. They went from no nuclear program to 5.4 GW of clean energy in 10 ish years.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I find it baffling that you can know about the disaster at Vogtle and think that it's something that should be tried again right away. What utility would do this? It is financial suicide. There's no allocator of capital whos going to look at Vogue and think "yes this is worth another shot". None. What investor? There's two half-built reactors in South Carolina. Who would be foolish to even try to complete them now? There is literally no one with the expertise to execute on more reactors that thinks we should order more AP1000, because now in 2023 we know much more than we did in 2008 and we know that nobody in the US can build them competitively.
    - evilos 3y ago
      I guess you should tell Poland because they've just ordered several. The first reactor is always the slowest and most expensive because you're going to make mistakes. Building just one is always a mistake. We've paid the deposit, so now we should reap the benefits of having the experience. We know what not to do now. With your attitude, we'd never build anything big.
      - epistasis 3y ago
        It's most definitely not the case that successive reactors are cheaper or faster, that's a myth that gets told but the data says otherwise both in the US and France and many other countries (but not all). Poland might need to use expensive nuclear, but it's not the case in the continental US. Poland is not the US, has far cheaper labor, and I don't know the status of their construction industry or their funding sources, but they are different from the US's. Again, if you think that this is a good idea for the US, how are you going to convince a utility to do this? And if it's an investor operated power gen facility, what investor would risk this? If it's a government-funded and owned facility, then that would solve thee funding source. It's another question if it's a wise use of capital, and yet another of who does the EPC. Perhaps Bechtel? Definitely the most likely to succeed. My attitude is not to avoid big projects. I think we need to build massive big projects. HVDC. High speed rail. Subways in all major cities. Massive factories, mines, etc. Advanced geothermal. New hydro in select locations. All of these projects will have better pay off, less risk, and increase the construction capacity of the US. Nuclear is not a wise choice for any of this. If we can increase our productivity on large projects, then it's time to try projects with less payoff, like nuclear.
- evilos 3y ago
  Reached the thread length limit. With regard to your last comment: > It's most definitely not the case that successive reactors are cheaper or faster, that's a myth that gets told but the data says otherwise both in the US and France and many other countries (but not all). Maybe, but Votgle is a massive outlier and successive plants of the same design are all but guaranteed to be faster and cheaper. You don't make those kinds of mistakes twice. For the long term trend, like you said it depends on the country. You can see in this figure: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Costs-of-Global-Nuclear-Reactors-in-USD2010-Costs-are-adjusted-by_fig1_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C... The giant explosion in costs for the US starts right when the disastrous ALARA regulation is adopted in 1971. Entirely self-inflicted wound. France and South Korea largely don't experience a cost increase in the time periods shown. You're going to have trouble convincing me that we can't pull off a Messmer plan because it has literally been done before. Yes, the government should be in charge of and finance it. That's the only realistic option and that is what has worked before. Hire the Koreans if we have to. Build us 3 or 4 Barakahs. It's been done. It's being done. It can be done again.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Vogtlr is the norm for advanced developed countries. Look at France's attempt at Flamanville. Or the EPR at Olkiluoto. Look at Summer in South Carolina. Look at all the Us construction projects from the 70's, before Three Mile Island. 2-4x the budget and 2-4x the timeline should be the expectation. Just because something was done in a particular time and place doesn't mean that the same thing can be achieved again, or even that we would want it. We have different people in different positions of power, completely different technological capabilities, completely different regulations. I haven't heard anyone suggest that we should get rid of ALARA that works in the field. And I certainly don't know anybody who works in the field who would ever want to build the same designs from the past. We have new and better tech, different costs of labor, everything is different. We need to operate on our best knowledge and tech today, not that from 50-60 years ago. You'll never convince me that's a sane way to make massive capital allocations.
    - evilos 3y ago

by evilos 3y ago

epistasis 3y ago

There definitely are fundamental differences in our capabilities here, and you seem to believe the same too. Look, for example, at the challenges that are being experienced as we try to build chip fabs in the US. Instintutional knowledge and capability are real things. And I definitely think that construction capability is an important thing to build. But let's improve our construction capability on building real things that get built and improve our capabilities, such as battery factories or solar panel factories or transmission lines or other things that get build closer to on-time, and then use those contractors that succeed to try more ambitious projects. Let's not piss away billions of dollars with no sustained knowledge growth or construction capacity improvement. Trying to build even, say, 10GW of new nuclear right now would be posing away 90% of the capital. We don't even know who we would really hire for this! Until we have a track record that's strong enough to attract investment, I don't see the rush to burn money on nuclear builds. It won't help the climate, and it doesn't even help the nuclear industry.

evilos 3y ago
We already paid the first of a kind cost at Votgle, ordering several more AP1000s is exactly what we should do at this point. We now have a workforce that has made the mistakes and knows what not to do. If you don't want to do that, you can do what the UAE did and hire the Koreans to teach you how to build plants. They went from no nuclear program to 5.4 GW of clean energy in 10 ish years.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I find it baffling that you can know about the disaster at Vogtle and think that it's something that should be tried again right away. What utility would do this? It is financial suicide. There's no allocator of capital whos going to look at Vogue and think "yes this is worth another shot". None. What investor? There's two half-built reactors in South Carolina. Who would be foolish to even try to complete them now? There is literally no one with the expertise to execute on more reactors that thinks we should order more AP1000, because now in 2023 we know much more than we did in 2008 and we know that nobody in the US can build them competitively.
  - evilos 3y ago
    I guess you should tell Poland because they've just ordered several. The first reactor is always the slowest and most expensive because you're going to make mistakes. Building just one is always a mistake. We've paid the deposit, so now we should reap the benefits of having the experience. We know what not to do now. With your attitude, we'd never build anything big.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      It's most definitely not the case that successive reactors are cheaper or faster, that's a myth that gets told but the data says otherwise both in the US and France and many other countries (but not all). Poland might need to use expensive nuclear, but it's not the case in the continental US. Poland is not the US, has far cheaper labor, and I don't know the status of their construction industry or their funding sources, but they are different from the US's. Again, if you think that this is a good idea for the US, how are you going to convince a utility to do this? And if it's an investor operated power gen facility, what investor would risk this? If it's a government-funded and owned facility, then that would solve thee funding source. It's another question if it's a wise use of capital, and yet another of who does the EPC. Perhaps Bechtel? Definitely the most likely to succeed. My attitude is not to avoid big projects. I think we need to build massive big projects. HVDC. High speed rail. Subways in all major cities. Massive factories, mines, etc. Advanced geothermal. New hydro in select locations. All of these projects will have better pay off, less risk, and increase the construction capacity of the US. Nuclear is not a wise choice for any of this. If we can increase our productivity on large projects, then it's time to try projects with less payoff, like nuclear.
evilos 3y ago
Reached the thread length limit. With regard to your last comment: > It's most definitely not the case that successive reactors are cheaper or faster, that's a myth that gets told but the data says otherwise both in the US and France and many other countries (but not all). Maybe, but Votgle is a massive outlier and successive plants of the same design are all but guaranteed to be faster and cheaper. You don't make those kinds of mistakes twice. For the long term trend, like you said it depends on the country. You can see in this figure: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Costs-of-Global-Nuclear-Reactors-in-USD2010-Costs-are-adjusted-by_fig1_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C... The giant explosion in costs for the US starts right when the disastrous ALARA regulation is adopted in 1971. Entirely self-inflicted wound. France and South Korea largely don't experience a cost increase in the time periods shown. You're going to have trouble convincing me that we can't pull off a Messmer plan because it has literally been done before. Yes, the government should be in charge of and finance it. That's the only realistic option and that is what has worked before. Hire the Koreans if we have to. Build us 3 or 4 Barakahs. It's been done. It's being done. It can be done again.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Vogtlr is the norm for advanced developed countries. Look at France's attempt at Flamanville. Or the EPR at Olkiluoto. Look at Summer in South Carolina. Look at all the Us construction projects from the 70's, before Three Mile Island. 2-4x the budget and 2-4x the timeline should be the expectation. Just because something was done in a particular time and place doesn't mean that the same thing can be achieved again, or even that we would want it. We have different people in different positions of power, completely different technological capabilities, completely different regulations. I haven't heard anyone suggest that we should get rid of ALARA that works in the field. And I certainly don't know anybody who works in the field who would ever want to build the same designs from the past. We have new and better tech, different costs of labor, everything is different. We need to operate on our best knowledge and tech today, not that from 50-60 years ago. You'll never convince me that's a sane way to make massive capital allocations.
  - evilos 3y ago