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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

by 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
  > Vogtlr is the norm for advanced developed countries. It is for countries that only build a few reactors. Again, China and Korea don't have this problem because they build lots of reactors. They aren't aliens. China doesn't even have cheap labor these days. The South Koreans are an advanced economy like us. They got good at it by doing it. There is no reason why we couldn't do that. We just don't want to and then we say it's not possible because we aren't good at it. It's circular logic. We've been saying it takes too long for decades when that is plenty of time to rebuild those skills and then build reactors quickly. We could've been done by now. > Look at all the Us construction projects from the 70's, before Three Mile Island. The chart in my last comment shows those reactors were built economically. If you look at the reactor build times at PRIS you can see the build times are quite impressive too: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=US https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.... > I haven't heard anyone suggest that we should get rid of ALARA that works in the field Why is that surprising? They are trained and educated that this is the correct and lawful standard to which they must operate. It's baked in to the institutions. > You'll never convince me that's a sane way to make massive capital allocations. The alternative will be even more capital intensive and it's completely unproven. You need to build out thousands of miles of high voltage transmission and TWhs of battery/hydrogen/hydro storage. It's unproven. No nation has a majority wind/solar grid without fossil fuel backup. Some places are blessed with enough hydro resources but that won't work in the US. We already know you can mostly decarbonize a grid with nuclear because France did it 40 years ago.

by evilos 3y ago

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
> Vogtlr is the norm for advanced developed countries. It is for countries that only build a few reactors. Again, China and Korea don't have this problem because they build lots of reactors. They aren't aliens. China doesn't even have cheap labor these days. The South Koreans are an advanced economy like us. They got good at it by doing it. There is no reason why we couldn't do that. We just don't want to and then we say it's not possible because we aren't good at it. It's circular logic. We've been saying it takes too long for decades when that is plenty of time to rebuild those skills and then build reactors quickly. We could've been done by now. > Look at all the Us construction projects from the 70's, before Three Mile Island. The chart in my last comment shows those reactors were built economically. If you look at the reactor build times at PRIS you can see the build times are quite impressive too: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=US https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.... > I haven't heard anyone suggest that we should get rid of ALARA that works in the field Why is that surprising? They are trained and educated that this is the correct and lawful standard to which they must operate. It's baked in to the institutions. > You'll never convince me that's a sane way to make massive capital allocations. The alternative will be even more capital intensive and it's completely unproven. You need to build out thousands of miles of high voltage transmission and TWhs of battery/hydrogen/hydro storage. It's unproven. No nation has a majority wind/solar grid without fossil fuel backup. Some places are blessed with enough hydro resources but that won't work in the US. We already know you can mostly decarbonize a grid with nuclear because France did it 40 years ago.