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> I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem Nuclear proponents have been wailing at the top of their lungs about this si

by phil21 3y ago

> I wish nuclear proponents would recognize the inherent challenges of the problem Nuclear proponents have been wailing at the top of their lungs about this since the time I could start reading newspapers. The largest problem is the pipeline of industry needed to build these things. That was completely destroyed by the anti-nuclear zealot crowd, knowingly so and with purpose. They absolutely knew (and I read articles on it) that if they froze most new construction for just a couple decades, the entire industry would vaporize due to lack of of talent pool and experience. Everyone was correct. That means if you want nuclear now, we better start on those giant 15 year construction projects or we'll never get better. It will take a generation - at least - to restart an industry from pretty much zero. Hundreds of thousands of current 2 year olds need to be trained before we can even hope to make a dent in this problem 20 years later.

pfdietz 3y ago
The pipeline wasn't destroyed by anti-nuclear zealots. What caused the termination of nuclear builds in the US had several interacting causes. First, electrical energy demand suddenly stopped growing. It had been growing 6% or so per year, and extensions of that into the future called for enormous numbers of power plants. But that suddenly slowed/stopped, around the time of the energy crisis. It turns out trees don't grow to the sky. Second, a new competitor arose: cogeneration. PURPA was passed in 1978 opening grids to non-utility generators. It required utilities to buy power from these generators, setting up a kind of market where new utility builds would compete with these sources. And lo and behold, power from cogeneration was way cheaper than from a new nuclear plant (cogeneration produces power from a fuel at 100% marginal efficiency). Since basically every industrial plant that uses process heat was a potential site for cogeneration, this was a lot of power that could be added to the grid. Third, the initial wave of nuclear builds was coming in way over budget, in an earlier reverse echo of what's happened lately. Forbes in the 1980s famously had a cover story on it, calling it the worst management disaster in history. All of these together slammed the lid on new nuclear construction in the US.

by phil21 3y ago

pfdietz 3y ago

The pipeline wasn't destroyed by anti-nuclear zealots. What caused the termination of nuclear builds in the US had several interacting causes. First, electrical energy demand suddenly stopped growing. It had been growing 6% or so per year, and extensions of that into the future called for enormous numbers of power plants. But that suddenly slowed/stopped, around the time of the energy crisis. It turns out trees don't grow to the sky. Second, a new competitor arose: cogeneration. PURPA was passed in 1978 opening grids to non-utility generators. It required utilities to buy power from these generators, setting up a kind of market where new utility builds would compete with these sources. And lo and behold, power from cogeneration was way cheaper than from a new nuclear plant (cogeneration produces power from a fuel at 100% marginal efficiency). Since basically every industrial plant that uses process heat was a potential site for cogeneration, this was a lot of power that could be added to the grid. Third, the initial wave of nuclear builds was coming in way over budget, in an earlier reverse echo of what's happened lately. Forbes in the 1980s famously had a cover story on it, calling it the worst management disaster in history. All of these together slammed the lid on new nuclear construction in the US.