4 ms·
Given the track record of AP1000 construction, who do you think would ever order one? I don't see a future for this. If somebody thought it was a feasible desi
by epistasis 4y ago
Given the track record of AP1000 construction, who do you think would ever order one?
I don't see a future for this. If somebody thought it was a feasible design for construction in Western countries, they could buy the half completed sites at Summer for a song.
I also think 300MW is too big. It's not really small enough to get the supposed benefits of small and modular.
The entire nuclear industry appears to be off its rocker when it comes to designs that are possible to construct for any reasonable amount of money. They bungled the AP1000 so badly that it bankrupted Westinghouse, and there's no reason to believe that they learned enough from the experience to do better next time. It's all terribly depressing, and completely soured me on the possibility of nuclear for the next 20-40 years. And in 20-40 years, look at how far storage, wind, and solar will have developed. It's unlikely that my nuclear will ever be a dominant energy source.
- pfdietz 4y agoThe whole industry, and its fan base, has descended into overt magical thinking. It is sad, and not a little ridiculous.
- m4rtink 4y agoSome older plant blocks were in the 300-500 MW range so I guess you could replace them with this ?
- pfdietz 4y agoThose older plants in the US have been shut down because they can't even earn back their operating costs.
- dirtsoc 4y agoWhat's sad is that it's mainly the US that has problems with this. China has managed to bring multiple of this reactor design to fruition while the US still screws around with building just two. I live in Georgia and the almost decade of overruns and corruption are being about to be paid for by Georgia Power customers via rate hikes.
- epistasis 4y agoFrance and Finland have had excessive difficulty with their EPR. My hypothesis is that modern economies with high wages will simply not be able to build a nuclear reactor economically. It appears to require a certain amount of 20th century technological advancement, but not so much economic advancement that labor costs are too high. France had a much better track record with nuclear in their first round of building. France can also build large construction projects without the massive cost overruns that the US has had. But they can't seem to get a next gen reactor built.
- bjornsing 4y agoInteresting hypothesis…
- natmaka 4y agoThe first EPR project in France (Flamanville-3) had problems documented in an official report (dubbed 'Folz', per the name of its main author), sadly AFAIK it wasn't translated into English: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/rapport-epr-flamanville https://www.economie.gouv.fr/rapport-epr-flamanville A piece about it: https://www.archyde.com/the-folz-report-draws-up-a-severe-assessment-of-the-failure-of-the-flamanville-epr/ https://www.archyde.com/the-folz-report-draws-up-a-severe-as... This study may also offer some hints: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...
- Reason077 4y agoIt's a bit simplistic to blame only labour costs. Large, complex civil projects often have cost and schedule overruns because contractors know they're going to get paid anyway so are incentivised to make the project slower and more expensive. Smaller, simpler projects don't tend to have the same issues because contractors know they can be replaced easily if they fail.
- pfdietz 4y agoRenewable projects also can be rolled out in stages, so if the contractors are scammers it shows up early.