4 ms·

> I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem, the inherent labor and construction efficiencies that made nuclear a good fi

> I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem, the inherent labor and construction efficiencies that made nuclear a good fit for the mid-20th century Yeah, this argument might hold water if there was nothing to compare to, but there is. China stamps these things out of an assembly line. Every year they’re building multiple nuclear reactors, leaving us in the dust. You can’t make the argument that China’s reactors are unsafe, because they’ve had less accidents than us. To me it’s obvious that it’s not an insurmountable engineering problem.

riffraff 3y ago
21st century china has a lot in common with early 20th western countries, namely cheap labor and the ability to push through people protests and regulations. South Korea might be a closer comparison.
- natmaka 3y ago
  In South Korea those 'abilities' couldn't hide a nuclear scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal
Tade0 3y ago
They still haven't reached the same capacity as France, even after 20 years of rapid development. Also in the same country wind overtook nuclear in terms of GWh delivered around a decade ago, and the gap only widened with time. Of course there are bold plans to accelerate nuclear even further, but at this rate it's doubtful it'll ever be a significant part of the electricity mix.
epistasis 3y ago
Actually I think this is the perfect comparison to support my point, not refute it. China does not suffer from construction cost disease like advanced Western countries do. Their cost of labor is lower. And even France, which doesn't have construction cost disease as bad for the US for things like transit projects, does have this problem now as they try to build Flamanville and as was seen at Olkiluoto. My hypothesis could definitely be wrong, perhaps it's just logistics and even with our high cost of labor we could still build nuclear economically in the US. But having read everything I can get my hands on about how to improve nuclear costs in the US, I'm sticking to my hypothesis until I get data that refutes it. And it's not an engineering problem alone, though at Vogtle it's clear that part of the problem was engineering. EPC in general was a massive fail at Vogtle. But the partial design and bad design did not help either. This was the site where EPC thought the design was unconstructable, yet still powered thought to construct something else, and then had to get this new thing approved... Everybody working on it has been gearing up to sue each other at the end rather than trying to get it built.
Gwypaas 3y ago
China is large enough to keep nuclear as an option, no matter the economic considerations, but the amount China builds barely makes a blip on the radar compared to renewables. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-trend-upward-while-nuclear-trends-flat/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre...
tpm 3y ago
> China stamps these things out of an assembly line. No it does not. Chinese nuclear reactors too are facing delays and cost overruns and they build a lot more of renewables than nuclear for the simple reason that it's much less expensive.
natmaka 3y ago
China? Not really. Started reactors: 2019: 3 reactors (Yangjiang-6, Tianwan-5 et Taishan-2) 2020: 1 (Fuqin-5) 2021: 1 (Hongyanhe-1) 2022: 3 (Fuqin-6) (Hongyanhe-6) (Fangchenggang-3) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... This trend is old and clear: nuclear produces 6% of China's electricity with 50GW nominal electric power, long-term plans for future capacity are 120 to 150 GW by 2030 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China ) while China already has 253GW solar and 281GW wind (plan for combined solar and wind: 1,200 gigawatts by 2030) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China ). In 2020 alone China added 71.6 GW windpower... Even taking into account the load factors (nuclear may reach .9 while wind-solar combined are at .3 to .5, mainly depending on the proportion of off-shore wind turbine power) this seems quite clear to me.
- orwin 3y ago
  Isn't solar load factor 10% to 15%? And wind %30 to 45%? I stopped following the improvements around 2019 when it became clear the issues were more social than technological, but that would be huge if wind load factors could reach 60%+,we wouldn't really need that much baseload.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    The capacity factor for 1-axis tracking solar in desert locations is more like 30%. Offshore wind can be upwards of 60%. Also, those capacity factors are already taken into account when computing levelized cost of energy, so don't double count.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
They're also building plenty of coal plants, too: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-new-coal-power-plants-per-week-in-2022/#:~:text=Coal%20power%20plant%20permitting%2C%20construction,rest%20of%20the%20world%20combined https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-.... The argument of "being left behind" is flimsy as it's more "China is catching up" as they provide more power to their numerous rural regions. I would say the US generally has "enough" power (well enough is never enough) so that a trickle of expansion is fine. China needs to and is building en masse, it's just incredibly bad that so many of their new watts will be coal.

riffraff 3y ago

21st century china has a lot in common with early 20th western countries, namely cheap labor and the ability to push through people protests and regulations. South Korea might be a closer comparison.

natmaka 3y ago
In South Korea those 'abilities' couldn't hide a nuclear scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

Tade0 3y ago

They still haven't reached the same capacity as France, even after 20 years of rapid development. Also in the same country wind overtook nuclear in terms of GWh delivered around a decade ago, and the gap only widened with time. Of course there are bold plans to accelerate nuclear even further, but at this rate it's doubtful it'll ever be a significant part of the electricity mix.

epistasis 3y ago

Actually I think this is the perfect comparison to support my point, not refute it. China does not suffer from construction cost disease like advanced Western countries do. Their cost of labor is lower. And even France, which doesn't have construction cost disease as bad for the US for things like transit projects, does have this problem now as they try to build Flamanville and as was seen at Olkiluoto. My hypothesis could definitely be wrong, perhaps it's just logistics and even with our high cost of labor we could still build nuclear economically in the US. But having read everything I can get my hands on about how to improve nuclear costs in the US, I'm sticking to my hypothesis until I get data that refutes it. And it's not an engineering problem alone, though at Vogtle it's clear that part of the problem was engineering. EPC in general was a massive fail at Vogtle. But the partial design and bad design did not help either. This was the site where EPC thought the design was unconstructable, yet still powered thought to construct something else, and then had to get this new thing approved... Everybody working on it has been gearing up to sue each other at the end rather than trying to get it built.

Gwypaas 3y ago

China is large enough to keep nuclear as an option, no matter the economic considerations, but the amount China builds barely makes a blip on the radar compared to renewables. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-trend-upward-while-nuclear-trends-flat/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre...

tpm 3y ago

> China stamps these things out of an assembly line. No it does not. Chinese nuclear reactors too are facing delays and cost overruns and they build a lot more of renewables than nuclear for the simple reason that it's much less expensive.

natmaka 3y ago

China? Not really. Started reactors: 2019: 3 reactors (Yangjiang-6, Tianwan-5 et Taishan-2) 2020: 1 (Fuqin-5) 2021: 1 (Hongyanhe-1) 2022: 3 (Fuqin-6) (Hongyanhe-6) (Fangchenggang-3) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... This trend is old and clear: nuclear produces 6% of China's electricity with 50GW nominal electric power, long-term plans for future capacity are 120 to 150 GW by 2030 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China ) while China already has 253GW solar and 281GW wind (plan for combined solar and wind: 1,200 gigawatts by 2030) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China ). In 2020 alone China added 71.6 GW windpower... Even taking into account the load factors (nuclear may reach .9 while wind-solar combined are at .3 to .5, mainly depending on the proportion of off-shore wind turbine power) this seems quite clear to me.

orwin 3y ago
Isn't solar load factor 10% to 15%? And wind %30 to 45%? I stopped following the improvements around 2019 when it became clear the issues were more social than technological, but that would be huge if wind load factors could reach 60%+,we wouldn't really need that much baseload.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The capacity factor for 1-axis tracking solar in desert locations is more like 30%. Offshore wind can be upwards of 60%. Also, those capacity factors are already taken into account when computing levelized cost of energy, so don't double count.

fennecfoxy 3y ago

They're also building plenty of coal plants, too: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-new-coal-power-plants-per-week-in-2022/#:~:text=Coal%20power%20plant%20permitting%2C%20construction,rest%20of%20the%20world%20combined https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-.... The argument of "being left behind" is flimsy as it's more "China is catching up" as they provide more power to their numerous rural regions. I would say the US generally has "enough" power (well enough is never enough) so that a trickle of expansion is fine. China needs to and is building en masse, it's just incredibly bad that so many of their new watts will be coal.