7 ms·

Gen3+ reactors are vastly safer and simpler than those that came before it, yet hardly anyone has started building them (China is the furthest ahead last I chec

Gen3+ reactors are vastly safer and simpler than those that came before it, yet hardly anyone has started building them (China is the furthest ahead last I checked, building AP1000 reactors). Safe and abundant electricity is possible, but we have to invest in it.

underseacables 3y ago
I think, equally as important as investment, is reducing third-party obstructionism. Environmental justice and anti-nuclear activists Continue to thwart these kind of projects with frivolous lawsuits.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I think the 'frivolous' is in the eye of the beholder, if they really were frivolous they'd be tossed out but they're not.
  - beezlewax 3y ago
    That's not how the courts work though is it?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's absolutely how they work if you bring a frivolous lawsuit you will end up with more trouble than you bargained for. There may be fines involved, you may have to pay the party that you sued, you may have to pay their costs for representation and so on. A lawsuit that you lose is fine, one that is frivolous really isn't, in those cases even the attorneys may get sanctioned (by the judge, or, less commonly, by the bar to the point where if they keep it up they may end up being disbarred).
      - fallingknife 3y ago
        The penalty for frivolous lawsuits is usually to pay the legal expenses of your opponent. This is an effective penalty to deter people trying to make money from filing frivolous lawsuits. It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects. It will be years before the lawsuit gets to that point, and if you are willing to trade money for a delay, the prospect of having to pay 2x the money for the same delay is hardly a deterrent.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        > It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects. Again: it is your opinion that these are frivolous lawsuits, and that's fine. But there are probably just as many (or more) people that think that they are not. A frivolous lawsuit is one that does not have merit, has no facts supporting it and usually isn't intended to be won. The lawsuit itself is the goal. These don't qualify as far as I'm concerned. Not even close.
      - ajmurmann 3y ago
        For the legal definition of "frivolous", yes. For stuff like asking for additional EPA assessments which change nothing, but add another year and cost $$$, not so much.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        You are assuming that you know the outcome of the assessment then. But that isn't always the case.
        q1w2 3y ago
        If you look at the outcomes of the assessments, they add zero value. They are intentionally designed to waste time and money. As an example, the nuclear storage facility was delayed, and ultimately cancelled, because the geologic analysis had only established the stability of the ground for the next 800,000 years, and the lawsuit demanded that it be extended to several MILLION years into the future. ...and they WON. Absolute INSANITY.
        ajmurmann 3y ago
        No, NEPA only requires you to gather the environmental impact data. There is no obligation to act on it in any way. It commonly gets used to request for more data to be gathered and delay projects further and use this as a bargaining chip or to sink the project entirely by creating costs for the project owner.
      - underseacables 3y ago
        Not Exactly. When it comes to a government action, if an attorney sues under environmental justice laws, and they win, the government pays their legal fees. The lawyers are incentivized to file suit. Very much like the bogus prop 65 industry.
        Affric 3y ago
        So, the government does something unlawful and then the government pay the legal fees that the citizens have incurred to stop the government from taking unlawful actions? What is the problem exactly? Costs are often awarded in many jurisdictions.
    - 93po 3y ago
      The bar for not getting dismissed is massively low.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Disclaimer: I worked in the nuclear engineering industry in the '90s. Move to Houston next to numerous chemical plants that blow up from time-to-time and let me know how those utopian talking points without regulation works out. The problem isn't NIMBY's or regulations, it's insurance costs.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Fortunately for nuclear, liability is tightly capped by the Price Anderson Act and the DOE will do basically any loan to get new nuclear off the ground.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Can you name any such obstructions to the last 4 attempted reactors in the US, the only new builds in the last 20 years? Obstructionism is not a problem with nuclear in the US, basic construction competency and diagnostic competency most certainly is though.
  - underseacables 3y ago
    Absolutely, but I'd rather just have you read this paper on environmental justice laws in the nuclear industry. It will educate you a bit more. For the nuclear energy industry, environmental justice considerations are relevant to every stage of the life cycle of nuclear energy. https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/nuclear-energy-and-environmental-justice-in-the-biden-era/ https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/nuclear-energy-and-enviro...
    - epistasis 3y ago
      By changing the topic and pointing to an irrelevant article, I take it that the claim about lawsuits is recanted and that no, you don't know of a single lawsuit at all? That article has nothing at all to do with Vogtle or Summer, has zero concrete claims, and is at most speculation about how things might be different in the future, and how some vague approaches might be used to make sure the nuclear industry fits in to some hypothetical and similarly vague push for vague values. I find it very odd how nuclear advocates cannot provide evidence for their claims, and often change the point. Honestly, I find it kind of rude that you claim to be providing one thing but then provide something completely unrelated, and act as if you actually did have evidence for your claims. It's extremely damaging to discussion, why should I trust anything you say from here on out if you are so unreliable? It's a huge problem that I run into with nuclear advocates, creationists, and anti-vaxxers. There's dedication to the causes but no dedication to conversational norms or even the basic standards of honesty.
- makotech221 3y ago
  [dead]
slothtrop 3y ago
I'm hoping "China is ahead" will be a motivating factor for the incumbents to push for this.
matsemann 3y ago
> Safe and abundant electricity is possible, but we have to invest in it. We need the energy now, though, not in 15+ years. In my country nuclear (which we have none of) is just a dream, but often pushed with those having an agenda against renewables to muddy the discussion. Calculations I've seen also places the cost of nuclear far above our hydro. As in the price a consumer would have to pay per kWh. Not sure if that even takes into account the massive government subsidies to build it.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  We need the energy in 15 years as well, maybe even more than we do today. Renewables is just a fancy term for "energy whenever the sun shines or the wind blows". This is factually not always the case. We need energy that is available regardless. And that's where fossil fuel and nuclear excels. Fossil fuel's downside that it kills ~3 million people per year. Nuclear's downside that it scares (not kills) ~3 million people per year.
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  They said that back in 2008 too. We also need the energy in 15 years. Of course nuclear will be costlier than your already provisioned hydro. Hydro is low hanging fruit and has already been mostly tapped out where possible.
  - Affric 3y ago
    Only not tapped out in the Congo and New Guinea from memory.
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  > We need the energy now, though, not in 15+ years. Well we will also need it in 15+ years. The best time to plant a tree is 15 years ago, and that will still be true in 15 years. The world (hopefully) isn't going to blow up within the next 15 years, so there's no reason we shouldn't consider 15-years investments anymore. Fossil fuels reserves are going to collapse in the coming decades; even if solar energy prices keep falling, it won't be enough to compensate; any given country has a fixed capacity for hydro power, and it's rather small. Right now nuclear may not be the cheapest options. But in 15/30 years we're going to desperately wish we'd explored absolutely every realistic option we had.
Obscurity4340 3y ago
Can I ask, pointblank, what is the most serious argument against nuclear and can it be mitigated either at all or in part to the extent it is defacto practical for universally-lateral domestic energy purposes?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Hard to choose between * fissile waste that lasts centuries (or more) * potential for meltdown or other accidental release of radiation * major military target, a threat not just for loss of generation but for deliberate release of radiation (by attacker)
  - canadianfella 3y ago
    [dead]
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    > fissile waste that lasts centuries (or more) Better than waste from carbon based power which can't even be contained in the short run. > potential for meltdown or other accidental release of radiation Releases less radiation than coal plants > major military target, a threat not just for loss of generation but for deliberate release of radiation (by attacker) If an attacker wants to release radiation they can just do it directly wherever they want instead of being limited by where a power plant is.
- hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 3y ago
  [dead]
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
  You'll get a variety of answers. Besides safety concerns, the biggest impediment to nuclear is simple economics. These are massive, capital intensive projects, with very long timelines. I wish I could dig it up easily but in the nuclear thread the other day an engineer posted an interesting retrospective analysis of what sort of engineering projects were likely to go massively over time and budget. Guess what was at the top of the list. While nuclear proponents would like to place blame solely on what they consider excessive regulation or by demonizing environmental activists, the reality is that investment dried up for nuclear because the bean counters saw the ROI and timeline was bad compared to alternatives. When you ask this same faction how to fix that they'll say small modular reactors, etc. That would be great if it existed. It doesn't. People have been trying to make it work for decades, NuScale the latest. I was bullish on NuScale when they started; it really looked like they'd cracked the code. Now they're floundering too. I would be ecstatic if someone creates these great SMR's that are economic, but I'm not holding my breath. There's no doubt nuclear needs to be part of the future energy mix, but the idea that all we have to do is get aggressive with nuclear and our problems are solved is navie nonsense imo.
TrackerFF 3y ago
It is a multifaceted problem. Often it comes down to: 1) There is no established community / trade to build and maintain nuclear energy on a industrial stage. I live in the neighboring country (Norway), and the nuclear energy community here is pretty much 100% academic. There's are nuclear engineering, tech, etc. programs, so in the start we'd have to import almost all the workers - all while starting our own programs. 2) It's a very long-term commitment, takes what, 10-15 years from shovel in ground to energy production? Compare that to wind energy and similar. The countries that really need energy, are needing it now. 3) Many countries have long-term plans for energy, which were formed decades ago. This is the case of my country - they analyzed nuclear energy back in the 70s, and deemed it not suitable. They are still, almost 5 decades later, parroting the same strategy. "We will focus on renewable hydro, wind, and solar energy, and concentrate funding to those sources" 4) There's a non-trivial amount of political opposition - even though new tech is much, much more safe than the older plants. Nuclear is still big and scary, and some parties will vehemently oppose it - no mater what facts or findings you present to them. And it is very much a NIMBY thing...even those that want it, become a bit hesitant when it comes time to plan for places to put the plants, if it turns out to be too close to home.
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Gen3+ reactors are expensive as well. And nuclear is the only energy source where price is increasing per kwh[1] very likely due to increased safety requirements. And in 15 years, I think nuclear will be completely unsustainable specially if we could invent better batteries in 15 years. [1]: http://solarcellcentral.com/images/avg_cost_of_energy.jpg http://solarcellcentral.com/images/avg_cost_of_energy.jpg
natmaka 3y ago
> Gen3+ reactors > yet hardly anyone has started building them Some attempts weren't particularly enticing. The EPR is a Gen3+: One just started in Finland, and as a project it is a major failure. Nearly 4 times the budget, 12 years late... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Olkiluoto_3_(Finland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Olkiluot... Two of them run in China, they were five years late and 60% overbudget. One had a problem justifying to stop it for more than one year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Taishan_1_and_2_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Taishan_... One is a WIP in France. It is massively late and overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanville_3_(France) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi... Two are a WIP in the UK, they already are (surprise!) late and overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Hinkley_Point_C_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Hinkley_...

underseacables 3y ago

I think, equally as important as investment, is reducing third-party obstructionism. Environmental justice and anti-nuclear activists Continue to thwart these kind of projects with frivolous lawsuits.

jacquesm 3y ago
I think the 'frivolous' is in the eye of the beholder, if they really were frivolous they'd be tossed out but they're not.
- beezlewax 3y ago
  That's not how the courts work though is it?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's absolutely how they work if you bring a frivolous lawsuit you will end up with more trouble than you bargained for. There may be fines involved, you may have to pay the party that you sued, you may have to pay their costs for representation and so on. A lawsuit that you lose is fine, one that is frivolous really isn't, in those cases even the attorneys may get sanctioned (by the judge, or, less commonly, by the bar to the point where if they keep it up they may end up being disbarred).
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      The penalty for frivolous lawsuits is usually to pay the legal expenses of your opponent. This is an effective penalty to deter people trying to make money from filing frivolous lawsuits. It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects. It will be years before the lawsuit gets to that point, and if you are willing to trade money for a delay, the prospect of having to pay 2x the money for the same delay is hardly a deterrent.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects. Again: it is your opinion that these are frivolous lawsuits, and that's fine. But there are probably just as many (or more) people that think that they are not. A frivolous lawsuit is one that does not have merit, has no facts supporting it and usually isn't intended to be won. The lawsuit itself is the goal. These don't qualify as far as I'm concerned. Not even close.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      For the legal definition of "frivolous", yes. For stuff like asking for additional EPA assessments which change nothing, but add another year and cost $$$, not so much.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        You are assuming that you know the outcome of the assessment then. But that isn't always the case.
        q1w2 3y ago
        If you look at the outcomes of the assessments, they add zero value. They are intentionally designed to waste time and money. As an example, the nuclear storage facility was delayed, and ultimately cancelled, because the geologic analysis had only established the stability of the ground for the next 800,000 years, and the lawsuit demanded that it be extended to several MILLION years into the future. ...and they WON. Absolute INSANITY.
        ajmurmann 3y ago
        No, NEPA only requires you to gather the environmental impact data. There is no obligation to act on it in any way. It commonly gets used to request for more data to be gathered and delay projects further and use this as a bargaining chip or to sink the project entirely by creating costs for the project owner.
    - underseacables 3y ago
      Not Exactly. When it comes to a government action, if an attorney sues under environmental justice laws, and they win, the government pays their legal fees. The lawyers are incentivized to file suit. Very much like the bogus prop 65 industry.
      - Affric 3y ago
        So, the government does something unlawful and then the government pay the legal fees that the citizens have incurred to stop the government from taking unlawful actions? What is the problem exactly? Costs are often awarded in many jurisdictions.
  - 93po 3y ago
    The bar for not getting dismissed is massively low.
1letterunixname 3y ago
Disclaimer: I worked in the nuclear engineering industry in the '90s. Move to Houston next to numerous chemical plants that blow up from time-to-time and let me know how those utopian talking points without regulation works out. The problem isn't NIMBY's or regulations, it's insurance costs.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Fortunately for nuclear, liability is tightly capped by the Price Anderson Act and the DOE will do basically any loan to get new nuclear off the ground.
epistasis 3y ago
Can you name any such obstructions to the last 4 attempted reactors in the US, the only new builds in the last 20 years? Obstructionism is not a problem with nuclear in the US, basic construction competency and diagnostic competency most certainly is though.
- underseacables 3y ago
  Absolutely, but I'd rather just have you read this paper on environmental justice laws in the nuclear industry. It will educate you a bit more. For the nuclear energy industry, environmental justice considerations are relevant to every stage of the life cycle of nuclear energy. https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/nuclear-energy-and-environmental-justice-in-the-biden-era/ https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/nuclear-energy-and-enviro...
  - epistasis 3y ago
    By changing the topic and pointing to an irrelevant article, I take it that the claim about lawsuits is recanted and that no, you don't know of a single lawsuit at all? That article has nothing at all to do with Vogtle or Summer, has zero concrete claims, and is at most speculation about how things might be different in the future, and how some vague approaches might be used to make sure the nuclear industry fits in to some hypothetical and similarly vague push for vague values. I find it very odd how nuclear advocates cannot provide evidence for their claims, and often change the point. Honestly, I find it kind of rude that you claim to be providing one thing but then provide something completely unrelated, and act as if you actually did have evidence for your claims. It's extremely damaging to discussion, why should I trust anything you say from here on out if you are so unreliable? It's a huge problem that I run into with nuclear advocates, creationists, and anti-vaxxers. There's dedication to the causes but no dedication to conversational norms or even the basic standards of honesty.
makotech221 3y ago
[dead]

slothtrop 3y ago

I'm hoping "China is ahead" will be a motivating factor for the incumbents to push for this.

matsemann 3y ago

> Safe and abundant electricity is possible, but we have to invest in it. We need the energy now, though, not in 15+ years. In my country nuclear (which we have none of) is just a dream, but often pushed with those having an agenda against renewables to muddy the discussion. Calculations I've seen also places the cost of nuclear far above our hydro. As in the price a consumer would have to pay per kWh. Not sure if that even takes into account the massive government subsidies to build it.

unglaublich 3y ago
We need the energy in 15 years as well, maybe even more than we do today. Renewables is just a fancy term for "energy whenever the sun shines or the wind blows". This is factually not always the case. We need energy that is available regardless. And that's where fossil fuel and nuclear excels. Fossil fuel's downside that it kills ~3 million people per year. Nuclear's downside that it scares (not kills) ~3 million people per year.
reducesuffering 3y ago
They said that back in 2008 too. We also need the energy in 15 years. Of course nuclear will be costlier than your already provisioned hydro. Hydro is low hanging fruit and has already been mostly tapped out where possible.
- Affric 3y ago
  Only not tapped out in the Congo and New Guinea from memory.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
> We need the energy now, though, not in 15+ years. Well we will also need it in 15+ years. The best time to plant a tree is 15 years ago, and that will still be true in 15 years. The world (hopefully) isn't going to blow up within the next 15 years, so there's no reason we shouldn't consider 15-years investments anymore. Fossil fuels reserves are going to collapse in the coming decades; even if solar energy prices keep falling, it won't be enough to compensate; any given country has a fixed capacity for hydro power, and it's rather small. Right now nuclear may not be the cheapest options. But in 15/30 years we're going to desperately wish we'd explored absolutely every realistic option we had.

Obscurity4340 3y ago

Can I ask, pointblank, what is the most serious argument against nuclear and can it be mitigated either at all or in part to the extent it is defacto practical for universally-lateral domestic energy purposes?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
Hard to choose between * fissile waste that lasts centuries (or more) * potential for meltdown or other accidental release of radiation * major military target, a threat not just for loss of generation but for deliberate release of radiation (by attacker)
- canadianfella 3y ago
  [dead]
- fallingknife 3y ago
  > fissile waste that lasts centuries (or more) Better than waste from carbon based power which can't even be contained in the short run. > potential for meltdown or other accidental release of radiation Releases less radiation than coal plants > major military target, a threat not just for loss of generation but for deliberate release of radiation (by attacker) If an attacker wants to release radiation they can just do it directly wherever they want instead of being limited by where a power plant is.
hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 3y ago
[dead]
jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
You'll get a variety of answers. Besides safety concerns, the biggest impediment to nuclear is simple economics. These are massive, capital intensive projects, with very long timelines. I wish I could dig it up easily but in the nuclear thread the other day an engineer posted an interesting retrospective analysis of what sort of engineering projects were likely to go massively over time and budget. Guess what was at the top of the list. While nuclear proponents would like to place blame solely on what they consider excessive regulation or by demonizing environmental activists, the reality is that investment dried up for nuclear because the bean counters saw the ROI and timeline was bad compared to alternatives. When you ask this same faction how to fix that they'll say small modular reactors, etc. That would be great if it existed. It doesn't. People have been trying to make it work for decades, NuScale the latest. I was bullish on NuScale when they started; it really looked like they'd cracked the code. Now they're floundering too. I would be ecstatic if someone creates these great SMR's that are economic, but I'm not holding my breath. There's no doubt nuclear needs to be part of the future energy mix, but the idea that all we have to do is get aggressive with nuclear and our problems are solved is navie nonsense imo.

TrackerFF 3y ago

It is a multifaceted problem. Often it comes down to: 1) There is no established community / trade to build and maintain nuclear energy on a industrial stage. I live in the neighboring country (Norway), and the nuclear energy community here is pretty much 100% academic. There's are nuclear engineering, tech, etc. programs, so in the start we'd have to import almost all the workers - all while starting our own programs. 2) It's a very long-term commitment, takes what, 10-15 years from shovel in ground to energy production? Compare that to wind energy and similar. The countries that really need energy, are needing it now. 3) Many countries have long-term plans for energy, which were formed decades ago. This is the case of my country - they analyzed nuclear energy back in the 70s, and deemed it not suitable. They are still, almost 5 decades later, parroting the same strategy. "We will focus on renewable hydro, wind, and solar energy, and concentrate funding to those sources" 4) There's a non-trivial amount of political opposition - even though new tech is much, much more safe than the older plants. Nuclear is still big and scary, and some parties will vehemently oppose it - no mater what facts or findings you present to them. And it is very much a NIMBY thing...even those that want it, become a bit hesitant when it comes time to plan for places to put the plants, if it turns out to be too close to home.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Gen3+ reactors are expensive as well. And nuclear is the only energy source where price is increasing per kwh[1] very likely due to increased safety requirements. And in 15 years, I think nuclear will be completely unsustainable specially if we could invent better batteries in 15 years. [1]: http://solarcellcentral.com/images/avg_cost_of_energy.jpg http://solarcellcentral.com/images/avg_cost_of_energy.jpg

natmaka 3y ago

> Gen3+ reactors > yet hardly anyone has started building them Some attempts weren't particularly enticing. The EPR is a Gen3+: One just started in Finland, and as a project it is a major failure. Nearly 4 times the budget, 12 years late... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Olkiluoto_3_(Finland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Olkiluot... Two of them run in China, they were five years late and 60% overbudget. One had a problem justifying to stop it for more than one year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Taishan_1_and_2_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Taishan_... One is a WIP in France. It is massively late and overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanville_3_(France) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi... Two are a WIP in the UK, they already are (surprise!) late and overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Hinkley_Point_C_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Hinkley_...