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From an economic point of view, this is a catastrophe. Solar panels will become more and more efficient, making nuclear power an utterly expensive alternative.

From an economic point of view, this is a catastrophe. Solar panels will become more and more efficient, making nuclear power an utterly expensive alternative. Private investors are building plants everywhere in my region. Not only solar panels, but windmills as well Why can’t we apply liberal market forces to nuclear energy? If it was worth it, heaps of corporations would be investing in it.

dehrmann 3y ago
Unless everyone starts building them tomorrow, I wouldn't worry too much. Commitments from these events are mostly empty promises, so if wind and solar are looking that much cheaper in five years, I'm sure they'd switch.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Part of the game will be to get other countries to sign contracts with the supplier before that realisation hits. They'll have decades of construction and further decades of expensive power to regret their decision by which time the sales team will have long retired. That kind of corruption is common even when the person selling the dream is getting money from their own country's people. It steps up a gear when you are selling the dream to other nations.
moritz 3y ago
Nuclear already is the expensive alternative. Just in the beginning of Nov, NuScale Power terminated its much hyped SMR projects in Utah [1]. Target price for these was $89 per megawatt hour. Wind and solar are what, ~$25/MWh currently? [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-agree-terminate-nuclear-project-2023-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-...
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Note that the target price (which probably wasn't going to be achieved) also involved about $30/MWh of federal subsidies, and the target assumed 40-50 reactor modules being built (it was not the price for those first six modules for CFPP). It was clear what was going to happen after they announced the price increase late in 2022/early 2023. NuScale carefully stopped making positive statements that could get them personally sued and the executives started unloading their stock.
- arnaudsm 3y ago
  Is that including storage? Renewables at unusable at scale without it, since they're intermittent sources. Also France has ~$50/MWh nuclear power.
vfclists 3y ago
> From an economic point of view, this is a catastrophe. Solar panels will become more and more efficient, making nuclear power an utterly expensive alternative. Private investors are building plants everywhere in my region. Nonsensical comment. Perhaps you should consider the environment damage that comes from the manufacture of solar panels and their disposal at EOL. First of all you don't even state what your region is. Europeans and Americans created regulations which make nuclear energy ridiculously expensive. Due to regulatory environment which means regulators can introduce additonal conditions at the drop of hat the time it takes to build nuclear power stations is simply undecidable. The Japanese and Koreans build nuclear plants in 5 years tops where as in the US it might take 30 years to finish a plant because the regulators keep on piling on new conditions when nothing in the environment has essentially changed. You would think that in the West experience gained in designing, building and managing nuclear plants would mean improved designs with each new generation. Not so.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  You're hitting all the usual nuke bro talking points there, but they are utterly without merit. Nuclear is struggling everywhere, even in China (relative to renewable installation) where it ostensibly has full support. This isn't because of regulatory obstacles, but because of the inherent inferiority of the technology.
  - maxglute 3y ago
    > even in China (relative to renewable installation) To be fair PRC has finally, recently, as in last few years, started building indigenous nuclear relatively economically which appear to be performing around original expectations. What happened / what PRC couldn't seem to do, like the west, is build _western_ nuclear tech economically, even (if one choose to presume) without onerous western regulations. PRC nuclear ambition under 13th 5-year plan was delayed largely due Fukushima reassessement and drama over original pursuit of western nuclear tech (French EPR / US AP1000 technical and political issues like US sanctions / Westinghouse bankruptcy) forcing PRC planners to switch to domestic tech, which is now coming online. Current 14th 5-year plan still aiming for ~180-200 GWe by 2035 with ~150 reactors, which is in line with mid 2010s assessments. What is also happening is PRC rapidly scaling up coal and solar, due to geopolitics of rushing energy security and lower renewable costs. No one expected renewable to scale so fast so cheaply. Another huge factor is PRC crack down on real estate shifted construction overcapacity into building renewables. 10s of millions of surplus construction workers + skills building skyscrapers and building solar and wind that is relatively transferable. Combined with vertical integration and industrial base, it's set of conditions hard to replicate in advanced economies unless they import a lot of labour. Which is not impossible. Advanced economies also disadvantaged in labour with respect to nuclear, even in US with immigration, fulfiling nuclear workforce demand is currently projected to be a large challenge. EU likely more difficult with their demographics. Last thing you want is to build a bunch of nuclear plants that are chronically short on labour. PRC on other hand, despite demographic doomsayers, still has depth to generate millions of STEM/technical workers for decades (hence youth unemployment). I don't really know what the solution for EU is, but I'm guessing politically, they'd rather deal with nuclear plants and prioritizing lower # of nuclear workforce than immigration to build renewables. If there's any urgency, EU would have to import millions of (let's be real) brown people. IIRC, EU has like 100m more people than US and 1M clean energy workers vs US 3M. Can EU bring in 3M workers short term to get renewable rollout on pace? Again, not impossible. But politically difficult.

dehrmann 3y ago

Unless everyone starts building them tomorrow, I wouldn't worry too much. Commitments from these events are mostly empty promises, so if wind and solar are looking that much cheaper in five years, I'm sure they'd switch.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Part of the game will be to get other countries to sign contracts with the supplier before that realisation hits. They'll have decades of construction and further decades of expensive power to regret their decision by which time the sales team will have long retired. That kind of corruption is common even when the person selling the dream is getting money from their own country's people. It steps up a gear when you are selling the dream to other nations.

moritz 3y ago

Nuclear already is the expensive alternative. Just in the beginning of Nov, NuScale Power terminated its much hyped SMR projects in Utah [1]. Target price for these was $89 per megawatt hour. Wind and solar are what, ~$25/MWh currently? [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-agree-terminate-nuclear-project-2023-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-...

pfdietz 3y ago
Note that the target price (which probably wasn't going to be achieved) also involved about $30/MWh of federal subsidies, and the target assumed 40-50 reactor modules being built (it was not the price for those first six modules for CFPP). It was clear what was going to happen after they announced the price increase late in 2022/early 2023. NuScale carefully stopped making positive statements that could get them personally sued and the executives started unloading their stock.
arnaudsm 3y ago
Is that including storage? Renewables at unusable at scale without it, since they're intermittent sources. Also France has ~$50/MWh nuclear power.

vfclists 3y ago

> From an economic point of view, this is a catastrophe. Solar panels will become more and more efficient, making nuclear power an utterly expensive alternative. Private investors are building plants everywhere in my region. Nonsensical comment. Perhaps you should consider the environment damage that comes from the manufacture of solar panels and their disposal at EOL. First of all you don't even state what your region is. Europeans and Americans created regulations which make nuclear energy ridiculously expensive. Due to regulatory environment which means regulators can introduce additonal conditions at the drop of hat the time it takes to build nuclear power stations is simply undecidable. The Japanese and Koreans build nuclear plants in 5 years tops where as in the US it might take 30 years to finish a plant because the regulators keep on piling on new conditions when nothing in the environment has essentially changed. You would think that in the West experience gained in designing, building and managing nuclear plants would mean improved designs with each new generation. Not so.

pfdietz 3y ago
You're hitting all the usual nuke bro talking points there, but they are utterly without merit. Nuclear is struggling everywhere, even in China (relative to renewable installation) where it ostensibly has full support. This isn't because of regulatory obstacles, but because of the inherent inferiority of the technology.
- maxglute 3y ago
  > even in China (relative to renewable installation) To be fair PRC has finally, recently, as in last few years, started building indigenous nuclear relatively economically which appear to be performing around original expectations. What happened / what PRC couldn't seem to do, like the west, is build _western_ nuclear tech economically, even (if one choose to presume) without onerous western regulations. PRC nuclear ambition under 13th 5-year plan was delayed largely due Fukushima reassessement and drama over original pursuit of western nuclear tech (French EPR / US AP1000 technical and political issues like US sanctions / Westinghouse bankruptcy) forcing PRC planners to switch to domestic tech, which is now coming online. Current 14th 5-year plan still aiming for ~180-200 GWe by 2035 with ~150 reactors, which is in line with mid 2010s assessments. What is also happening is PRC rapidly scaling up coal and solar, due to geopolitics of rushing energy security and lower renewable costs. No one expected renewable to scale so fast so cheaply. Another huge factor is PRC crack down on real estate shifted construction overcapacity into building renewables. 10s of millions of surplus construction workers + skills building skyscrapers and building solar and wind that is relatively transferable. Combined with vertical integration and industrial base, it's set of conditions hard to replicate in advanced economies unless they import a lot of labour. Which is not impossible. Advanced economies also disadvantaged in labour with respect to nuclear, even in US with immigration, fulfiling nuclear workforce demand is currently projected to be a large challenge. EU likely more difficult with their demographics. Last thing you want is to build a bunch of nuclear plants that are chronically short on labour. PRC on other hand, despite demographic doomsayers, still has depth to generate millions of STEM/technical workers for decades (hence youth unemployment). I don't really know what the solution for EU is, but I'm guessing politically, they'd rather deal with nuclear plants and prioritizing lower # of nuclear workforce than immigration to build renewables. If there's any urgency, EU would have to import millions of (let's be real) brown people. IIRC, EU has like 100m more people than US and 1M clean energy workers vs US 3M. Can EU bring in 3M workers short term to get renewable rollout on pace? Again, not impossible. But politically difficult.