7 ms·

It looks like the biggest problem with nuclear is not the safety or whatnot, it's just that as a civilization, we just can't build them without cost overruns an

by pradn 3y ago

It looks like the biggest problem with nuclear is not the safety or whatnot, it's just that as a civilization, we just can't build them without cost overruns and massive delays. And this is a loss, because we need non-variable energy sources to augment wind/solar/tidal. Perhaps the other way to solve the energy transition is to lean heavily into mass storage of variable energy sources. If you have enough energy storage, you don't need so much of the base energy suppliers like gas/coal/nuclear.

thescriptkiddie 3y ago
This problem isn't confined to nuclear energy either. Just about the only thing our society is still able to build quickly and cheaply are roads.
- jdechko 3y ago
  Not exactly. I work as a project manager in the transportation field, and I can tell you that inflation has doubled (or more) the cost of several of my projects in the past few years. Most of the increases can be attributed to rising costs, and not necessarily scope changes. Combined with limited funding, the projects continue to get delayed.
bluefirebrand 3y ago
Wonder if it's worth digging into why that's the case. It seems like it's a lot more than just the cost of materials + labour that's the problem.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There is lots of research on that for transport infrastructure at least. https://transitcosts.com/ https://transitcosts.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/
- tomatocracy 3y ago
  There's been some work done on this in the US context (eg [0]) but not really enough. It seems like general large project issues (need to adapt to site specific conditions as they are discovered, difficulty ensuring work stays properly scheduled so that construction workers don't sit idle for large amounts of time, etc.) are a big part, and these are made worse because of the knock on impact when these interact with safety regulations/processes. There's some hope that making designs smaller and more modular might enable less chance of big overspend at a slightly higher expected cost but that's speculation until we actually do it. 0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512030458X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512...
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Ultimately, if you're forced to send cluster munitions because your ammo factory is a historically listed building that can't expand to fulfill demand, I think it won't matter how much you cut everything else. You just can't build another ammo factory, so you just don't get to do things.
snapplebobapple 3y ago
Just a point of clarity, we need demand resources, which means variable at our command vs not variable or variable based on wind/solar input out of our control. The economically viable mass storage options (i.e pumped storage) are basically all deployed. Batteries are getting there but they still need some shenanigans in the ancillary market where they get paid for not running for complex reasons to make the economics in most instances. As the shenanigans price out nat gas in those markets it will be interesting to see how offer strategies of nat gas change to recoup the lost economic viability and if that makes batteries less profitable.
- Retric 3y ago
  Batteries are already viable paired with solar. You see solar power purchase agreements in the 1.5 to 2c / kWh range and you can directly use that energy around 1/2 the time. Recharging and discharging batteries isn’t 100% efficient but it’s close. Current numbers are lower, but in 2022 you could use LFP for ~5,000 discharge cycles and pay ~480$/kWh of capacity or ~9.6 c/kWh. Inverters etc last longer than the batteries themselves so you can amortize those costs across multiple generations of batteries, therefore it’s not quite upfront costs / number of discharge cycles, but it’s also not that far off of it. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf Still roughly 2c/kWh * 105% + 9.6 c/kWh * 50% ~= 6.9c/kWh averaged over a day. Currently batteries are discharged at peak demand, but the underlying economics scales just fine even if you double the number of solar panels for redundancy and aren’t being paid a premium. Further at scale demand that shifted to cheaper nighttime rates will instead shift to cheaper daytime rates.
  - tomatocracy 3y ago
    I assume that's for already built solar PV, though it still seems extremely low to me so I'm curious where you are seeing this. For reference on new build, at the UK government's most recently completed CfD auction (which happened in September), the solar PV bids accepted were at £47/MWh, CPI indexed and specified in 2012 prices: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-5-results/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-5-results-accessible-webpage https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-dif...
lm28469 3y ago
> we just can't build them without cost overruns and massive delays. Which isn't a problem, nor even a concern, for big rockets or weapons tho
- all2 3y ago
  You can't shoot the bad guys with a nuclear power plant, so no selling it using fear.
xenon7 3y ago
Would it be wrong to assume that we're dealing with an Apollo-style issue here (we "no longer have the technology to do it efficiently")? I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear power, but it is a little odd how the average nuclear reactor in the US is 42 years old [1]. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-indus...
- throwaway4aday 3y ago
  It's just the U.S. China, France, and Japan have all successfully built nuclear at scale. I won't be surprised if developing nations in Africa start lapping the U.S. on nuclear power in the next few decades. They certainly have enough Uranium to do so.
  - ProjectArcturis 3y ago
    Why would they take enormous risks on execution -- huge cost overruns and delays are par for the course with nuclear -- when solar + battery is so much cheaper and quicker?
briffle 3y ago
These are to be mass produced, and shipped to the site. So really, the first few will have cost overruns and delays, but then they should be able to re-use all the tooling, processes, transportation equipment, etc, to get the rest going.
- petre 3y ago
  Only the reactor vessel which is probably one of the most expensive parts of the entire project (21%), along with the turbine (18%). Construction, engineering services, structures are probably where the bulk of cost overruns are happening. https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/
ViewTrick1002 3y ago
> And this is a loss, because we need non-variable energy sources to augment wind/solar/tidal. We need dispatchable energy to complement renewables. Nuclear is on the complete opposite side of the dispatchability equation with high CAPEX and low OPEX. Like the cancellation exemplifies, even running at 100% nuclear is wholly uncompetitive. Being dispatchable means vastly lowering the utilization rate.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Exactly. The people who say nuclear is needed to complement renewables are just not thinking it through.
anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago
I wonder why the Navy or Core of Engineers can't make civilian nuclear systems. It arguably would have made us safer as a country to have energy independence by investing dollars in reactors for domestic use instead of for warheads and nuclear submarines.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  Because their customer, the US navy, is the world's least price sensitive customer. That does not translate into competitive products on cutthroat markets.
treypitt 3y ago
that's just America, and its not just nuclear, it's civil engineering & construction projects of all kind that have ballooned in complexity and cost due to myriad political and regulatory causes. France can build reactors cheaply and easily due to standardized reactor designs; I'm not sure the US has ever replicated a reactor build (ie, every reactor is built in a different & unique way)
- avar 3y ago
  > France can build reactors cheaply and easily[...] It can? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
  - WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
    They can, this one project is just the exception, it was a failure since the start (collaboration between France and Germany, Germany later ditched it in favor of their solar panel projects.. )
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  > France can build reactors cheaply and easily due to standardized reactor designs Your information on french reactor building prowes is several decades out of date.
Gravityloss 3y ago
As a civilization we have been capable of that multiple times in multiple places. Those technologies are not lost. In fact there are now new reactor projects that are simplified from older ones that could be built potentially fast. People generalize a lot! There are a large variety of nuclear reactors. Even construction projects of the same design vary somewhat.
- cinntaile 3y ago
  Potentially being the key word here. They don't seem to succeed when going from theory to reality so far.
  - Gravityloss 3y ago
    That's not true, there have been successes.
    - cinntaile 3y ago
      There haven't been any successes in the west in the last 30-40 years as far as I know, but if you have any recent counter examples I'm all ears.
      - Gravityloss 3y ago
        France and Japan etc. Older than 30 years for sure. But certainly shows that our civilization is capable of it.

by pradn 3y ago

thescriptkiddie 3y ago

This problem isn't confined to nuclear energy either. Just about the only thing our society is still able to build quickly and cheaply are roads.

jdechko 3y ago
Not exactly. I work as a project manager in the transportation field, and I can tell you that inflation has doubled (or more) the cost of several of my projects in the past few years. Most of the increases can be attributed to rising costs, and not necessarily scope changes. Combined with limited funding, the projects continue to get delayed.

bluefirebrand 3y ago

Wonder if it's worth digging into why that's the case. It seems like it's a lot more than just the cost of materials + labour that's the problem.

panick21_ 3y ago
There is lots of research on that for transport infrastructure at least. https://transitcosts.com/ https://transitcosts.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/
tomatocracy 3y ago
There's been some work done on this in the US context (eg [0]) but not really enough. It seems like general large project issues (need to adapt to site specific conditions as they are discovered, difficulty ensuring work stays properly scheduled so that construction workers don't sit idle for large amounts of time, etc.) are a big part, and these are made worse because of the knock on impact when these interact with safety regulations/processes. There's some hope that making designs smaller and more modular might enable less chance of big overspend at a slightly higher expected cost but that's speculation until we actually do it. 0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512030458X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512...
renewiltord 3y ago
Ultimately, if you're forced to send cluster munitions because your ammo factory is a historically listed building that can't expand to fulfill demand, I think it won't matter how much you cut everything else. You just can't build another ammo factory, so you just don't get to do things.

snapplebobapple 3y ago

Just a point of clarity, we need demand resources, which means variable at our command vs not variable or variable based on wind/solar input out of our control. The economically viable mass storage options (i.e pumped storage) are basically all deployed. Batteries are getting there but they still need some shenanigans in the ancillary market where they get paid for not running for complex reasons to make the economics in most instances. As the shenanigans price out nat gas in those markets it will be interesting to see how offer strategies of nat gas change to recoup the lost economic viability and if that makes batteries less profitable.

Retric 3y ago
Batteries are already viable paired with solar. You see solar power purchase agreements in the 1.5 to 2c / kWh range and you can directly use that energy around 1/2 the time. Recharging and discharging batteries isn’t 100% efficient but it’s close. Current numbers are lower, but in 2022 you could use LFP for ~5,000 discharge cycles and pay ~480$/kWh of capacity or ~9.6 c/kWh. Inverters etc last longer than the batteries themselves so you can amortize those costs across multiple generations of batteries, therefore it’s not quite upfront costs / number of discharge cycles, but it’s also not that far off of it. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf Still roughly 2c/kWh * 105% + 9.6 c/kWh * 50% ~= 6.9c/kWh averaged over a day. Currently batteries are discharged at peak demand, but the underlying economics scales just fine even if you double the number of solar panels for redundancy and aren’t being paid a premium. Further at scale demand that shifted to cheaper nighttime rates will instead shift to cheaper daytime rates.
- tomatocracy 3y ago
  I assume that's for already built solar PV, though it still seems extremely low to me so I'm curious where you are seeing this. For reference on new build, at the UK government's most recently completed CfD auction (which happened in September), the solar PV bids accepted were at £47/MWh, CPI indexed and specified in 2012 prices: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-5-results/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-5-results-accessible-webpage https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-dif...

lm28469 3y ago

> we just can't build them without cost overruns and massive delays. Which isn't a problem, nor even a concern, for big rockets or weapons tho

all2 3y ago
You can't shoot the bad guys with a nuclear power plant, so no selling it using fear.

xenon7 3y ago

Would it be wrong to assume that we're dealing with an Apollo-style issue here (we "no longer have the technology to do it efficiently")? I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear power, but it is a little odd how the average nuclear reactor in the US is 42 years old [1]. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-indus...

throwaway4aday 3y ago
It's just the U.S. China, France, and Japan have all successfully built nuclear at scale. I won't be surprised if developing nations in Africa start lapping the U.S. on nuclear power in the next few decades. They certainly have enough Uranium to do so.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  Why would they take enormous risks on execution -- huge cost overruns and delays are par for the course with nuclear -- when solar + battery is so much cheaper and quicker?

briffle 3y ago

These are to be mass produced, and shipped to the site. So really, the first few will have cost overruns and delays, but then they should be able to re-use all the tooling, processes, transportation equipment, etc, to get the rest going.

petre 3y ago
Only the reactor vessel which is probably one of the most expensive parts of the entire project (21%), along with the turbine (18%). Construction, engineering services, structures are probably where the bulk of cost overruns are happening. https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/

ViewTrick1002 3y ago

> And this is a loss, because we need non-variable energy sources to augment wind/solar/tidal. We need dispatchable energy to complement renewables. Nuclear is on the complete opposite side of the dispatchability equation with high CAPEX and low OPEX. Like the cancellation exemplifies, even running at 100% nuclear is wholly uncompetitive. Being dispatchable means vastly lowering the utilization rate.

pfdietz 3y ago
Exactly. The people who say nuclear is needed to complement renewables are just not thinking it through.

anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago

I wonder why the Navy or Core of Engineers can't make civilian nuclear systems. It arguably would have made us safer as a country to have energy independence by investing dollars in reactors for domestic use instead of for warheads and nuclear submarines.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Because their customer, the US navy, is the world's least price sensitive customer. That does not translate into competitive products on cutthroat markets.

treypitt 3y ago

that's just America, and its not just nuclear, it's civil engineering & construction projects of all kind that have ballooned in complexity and cost due to myriad political and regulatory causes. France can build reactors cheaply and easily due to standardized reactor designs; I'm not sure the US has ever replicated a reactor build (ie, every reactor is built in a different & unique way)

avar 3y ago
> France can build reactors cheaply and easily[...] It can? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  They can, this one project is just the exception, it was a failure since the start (collaboration between France and Germany, Germany later ditched it in favor of their solar panel projects.. )
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> France can build reactors cheaply and easily due to standardized reactor designs Your information on french reactor building prowes is several decades out of date.

Gravityloss 3y ago

As a civilization we have been capable of that multiple times in multiple places. Those technologies are not lost. In fact there are now new reactor projects that are simplified from older ones that could be built potentially fast. People generalize a lot! There are a large variety of nuclear reactors. Even construction projects of the same design vary somewhat.

cinntaile 3y ago
Potentially being the key word here. They don't seem to succeed when going from theory to reality so far.
- Gravityloss 3y ago
  That's not true, there have been successes.
  - cinntaile 3y ago
    There haven't been any successes in the west in the last 30-40 years as far as I know, but if you have any recent counter examples I'm all ears.
    - Gravityloss 3y ago
      France and Japan etc. Older than 30 years for sure. But certainly shows that our civilization is capable of it.