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Genuine question. What is the stopping the US from paying every experienced French Nuclear Engineer x 2 x Usual US cost Adjustment --> and letting them build he
by screye 3y ago
Genuine question. What is the stopping the US from paying every experienced French Nuclear Engineer x 2 x Usual US cost Adjustment --> and letting them build here in the US ? France and US are allies, and likely aligned on climate goals. France has similar climate as many of the planned regions and has fairly high building standards.
- Zigurd 3y agoBut not the ones who underestimated decommissioning costs by a factor of 4 vs. Germany's estimates, and about a factor of 10 vs. UK. France is not the paragon of nuclear efficiency it is commonly portrayed as being. It's not just that NPPs are expensive to build, and unpredictably priced in ways that make the price of power generated uncompetitive. They are also a large and hard to predict liability after they stop generating power and the income from selling that power. There is no example of "this is how to do it." New designs have to emerge and be proven before it is possible to build new NPPs with as much cost certainty as other kinds of power generation.
- fransje26 3y agoProbably the same problems that are making (rail) infrastructure building 10x more expensive in the US than in Europe. It's not that the knowledge is inaccessible, the problem is that the not-invented-here syndrome compounded by administrative red-tape, powerful counter lobbies and greedy actors make those projects prohibitively expensive.
- roomey 3y agoWell... They only know metric, would be a recipe for disaster!
- godelski 3y agoFrance still hasn't built a reactor in several decades. Latest started in 91 and finished in 02. The problem is that the parent missed some parts of the story.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoLook, the elephant in the room is that if a power company wants to invest a billion dollars in power generation, they are going to do it with solar/wind. The project scales out, the cost is dropping constantly, and they get power generation early in the project. A nuclear power plant is: - a 10 year investment delay (with no return until completed) - could be cancelled at any moment (high risk) - with a very uncertain price target (solar/wind + grid storage will probably be half the cost or less of what it is today) - can't be expanded - very likely to balloon in cost and be a total financial quagmire Solar/wind can be scalably purchased, installed, and expanded as needed. The costs will drop continuously, replacement and maintenance is easy, there's no nuclear waste to get rid of, and can very reliably be specced in terms of cost for generation.
- belorn 3y agoPower companies that wants to invest a billion dollars in power generation will also invest into fossil fueled power delivery. Solar and wind produce a lot of cheap energy when the weather is optimal, but when the weather change and demand exceeds supply, the market price of energy goes to the roof. Last winter in Europe we saw prices spikes well over 100x of what the average market cost, which primarily went pay for fossil fueled power generation. Fossil fueled power delivery also get a lot of subsidizes in order to provide reserve energy, so they get the advantage of being paid twice. Solar and wind is excellent investment for those wanting to compete when supply in the grid is high and prices are low. Nuclear, hydro, storage and fossil fuels are there to compete with supply is low and prices high.
- sashank_1509 3y agoI don't think this is an issue of engineer competency. If you gave it to a French company, even they would be bogged down by the US regulatory agency and simply fail.
- diordiderot 3y ago> would be bogged down by the US regulatory agency Oooooh buddy, you mustn't be familiar with some layers French bureaucracy. Imagine a unionized DMV.
- inglor_cz 3y agoI am a Czech, so no dog in this particular fight barks for me. But the French train company SNCF abandoned the Californian high-speed rail project, citing local political dysfunctionality and comparing it unfavorably to ... Morocco. https://www.businessinsider.com/french-california-high-speed-rail-north-africa-biden-trump-2022-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/french-california-high-speed...
- runarberg 3y agoThat is a bit ironic now isn't it. Now that Morocco has high speed rail, but California doesn't.
- pfdietz 3y agoThe California high speed rail project never made any sense, even before political dysfunction.
- diordiderot 3y agoMade perfect sense. Uncomfortable length to drive, and end to end trip time would be shorter (and more comfy) on a highspeed train than on a plane (getting to the airport early, security, baggage collection, taxi to the city, etc).
- 3y ago
- lmm 3y agoWho would vote for it?
- dabber 3y agoIf you mean the public, I'd expect a lot of people, if it were presented right, considering how often the cost of energy comes up in political discussion If you mean congress, I think the more important questions are - who would lobby for it? - who would lobby against it?
- mc32 3y agoHard to say. The public is divided. Even environmentalists are divided. Some follow the old misinformed guard led by ms. Fonda and you have some more new throwback environmentalists behind nuclear. It really sticks is my craw that a misinformed but activist actress can torpedo an industry for half a century.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThe industry and governments of the time torpedoed itself by insisting on secrecy and, especially in the case of the UK, doing stupid things like building the reactors on SSSIs (sites of special scientific interest, for instance Torness) instead of building them near where the power was needed. As someone else said in this discussion: presented properly many people would vote for nuclear power. However, you need to have some substance to the presentation too.
- robertlagrant 3y agoGreenPeace has a lot of content on their website[0] with questionable anti-nuclear power content. They have been a force for decades for anti-nuclear content, when renewables were in a hilariously worse state than they are today. [0] https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/nuclear-power https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/nuclear-power
- pfdietz 3y ago
- dotnet00 3y agoThe US has no lack of relevant engineers, after all, it does maintain a large fleet of nuclear powered vessels. As is usual with most of America's problems, there's just a lack of sufficiently concentrated political will to get things done.
- prottog 3y ago> there's just a lack of sufficiently concentrated political will to get things done. Ideally it shouldn't be the case that something like building a power plant to produce electricity shouldn't require political will; just willing investors and operators who desire to make a profit.
- layer8 3y agoThe lack of willing investors might indicate that they are doubtful about the profitability.
- prottog 3y agoAbsolutely true, but the profitability is likely affected precisely by government policy.
- brohee 3y agoBy policy, over the next 80 years.
- layer8 3y agoWell, surely the government can’t allow anyone to just build a nuclear power plant, so some policies are required. I can’t judge how reasonable or unreasonable the current ones are. But I can imagine for reasonable policies to be unprofitable without government subsidies, and that would require political will.
- JohnBooty 3y agoThat, and the influence of the fossil fuel companies.
- calaphos 3y agoThe same reason that France is utterly failing at building flamaville 3 - it's not a technical problem but of regulation, government and public support.
- Xixi 3y agoAnd yet, EDF successfully built Taishan 1 and Taishan 2 in China, pretty much in time and in budget. There were a couple of teething issues (as expected given these were the first two EPRs to enter service), but they are now running great. According to Yves Bréchet [1], former head of the French Atomic Energy Commission, the main difference is not regulation, government or public support. It's something that should speak a lot to the engineers on HN, but is almost always absent in public debates: the lack of technical expertise. Think expert welders, pipe-fitters, boiler makers, etc. The expertise required when making a nuclear power plant is very high, including and especially when it comes to welding, quality of steel, etc. Costly mistakes were made while welding critical parts of Flamanville 3 for instance, requiring expansive and expensive rework. I don't think Hinkley Point C is faring much better. On the other side of the world China has been building nuclear power plants relentlessly: they have all the expertise needed. If you allow me a slight exaggeration, given France and UK massive de-industrialization over the last few decades, we are now amateurs compared to China. Again, it's not an issue of regulation. It's just that when you don't build things the know-how gets lost very very quickly. Something that should get hammered in the head of all CEOs/managers/decision maker... [1] https://www.thinkerview.com/france-la-strategie-du-canard-sans-tete-yves-brechet/ https://www.thinkerview.com/france-la-strategie-du-canard-sa...
- OJFord 3y agoUS compliance & regulation, which would take three committees and five years to approve each metric BOM item or certified acceptable substitute?. You don't even need to oay the engineers more, not only because you have engineers, but because EDF for example can be given attractive enough terms to build and operate overseas, as it has in the UK.
- thrawa8387336 3y agoProbably the biggest bureaucracy in the world. Wonder how it compares per capita with China
- OJFord 3y agoHard to be sure because of the population difference, but India's got to be well up there. US border control is a paramilitary operation; India's is a bureaucratic one.
- pyrale 3y agoThis may come as a surprise to you, but many french people have no interest living in the US, even for more money. > France and US are allies Probably not after such an event.
- otikik 3y agoWeapons manufacturers would not benefit from this.