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The problem with nuclear is not the public outcry against it. That did not stop our attempts at Vogtle or Summer in the 2000s. What stopped these new nuclear b

The problem with nuclear is not the public outcry against it. That did not stop our attempts at Vogtle or Summer in the 2000s. What stopped these new nuclear builds, and doomed future new nuclear builds, was fraud on the part of management, unconstructable designs, incompetence in EPC, etc. these are the challenges with nuclear. If somebody could build cost effective nuclear that didn't bankrupt those building it, there are roughly 100 reactors in the US nearing their end of life that local populations would love to keep running. Nuclear didn't die because of public outcry in the US, it died because of cost overruns and bankrupting utilities. No buyer wants to take on that risk.

philwelch 3y ago
Almost all of the cost issues with nuclear power is regulatory in nature. https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  With how brazenly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been captured? Unlikely
- epistasis 3y ago
  Even if this were true (and I have my doubts), nobody has a proposal for a different regulatory scheme that would lower costs. France has seen similarly high costs with an entirely different regulatory scheme, for example. "Regulations" are the excuse of people that didn't do their homework or prepare for the serious work of large construction projects. All of which have huge overruns in the US, regulations or not. In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem. Advanced economies have far more productive uses for workers than sitting around construction sites, waiting for something to arrive so that they can finally do a small amount of work before waiting some more.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - epistasis 3y ago
      Oh I've read that thing many times, it gets linked everywhere...
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    > In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem. Yes, and the gigantism of the projects does not help. Here's an example [1]. Last week they mounted the reactor dome at Hinkley. Here's a quote: > Using one of the world's largest cranes, known as Big Carl, the dome - with a diameter of almost 47 metres, height of 14 metres and weighing 245 tonnes - was lifted and then slowly lowered onto the 44-metre-high reactor building. SMRs would address that. Every single thing about gigawatt scale reactors is extremely expensive. If you reduce the scale of the reactor by a factor of 10, then you won't need "Big Carl", you would not need a 245 ton dome, you wouldn't need containment vessels that can only be build by a handful of forges in the world [2] (none in the US). You are absolutely right, this has nothing to do with the NRC. They have a job to do, and in a world where Fukushima can happen, you can't be too careful. But can SMRs reduce construction costs? The anti-nuclear crowd is dancing in the streets for the failure of NuScale to keep the Utah project alive. But NuScale is a player with zero experience. There are numerous other players [3] that actually build reactors. For example one is BWXT, a company that makes nuclear reactors for the US Navy. [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hinkley-Point-C-landmark-dome-lift-in-pictures https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hinkley-Point-C-... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... [3] https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_booklet_2022.pdf https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_booklet_2022.pdf
    - camel_gopher 3y ago
      The mass production aspect of SMRs should provide some economies of scale for construction costs. Needing a large crane doesn’t scale.
panick21_ 3y ago
Nuclear didn't make it because coal was to cheap. People now are willing to pay more for solar/wind and so on, and government is willing to help pay for it. This wasn't the case for Nuclear in the 70/80s. Combine that with the complete rewrite of regulation and the whole governmental structure in regards to nuclear, making them much tougher to build, killing much of the research, limited political support from either side and so on and so on. They had to essentially rebuild plants according to newer standards stopping all new construction. While some of those changes were worthy, its also objectively true that coal plants were not subjected to nearly as much additional regulation despite them being much less save both for the workers and for the population around. So if you have one standard of safety applied to one thing, and a completely different standard to another thing, then of course nuclear can't win in a market situation. Large scale nuclear is successful if you can do it at scale. But that needs a top down approach or at least government approval and support. Had nuclear received the kind of support wind/solar had in the last 20 years, the US would have transition to nuclear at a rate comparable to the adoption of oil.
- wffurr 3y ago
  Who is paying more than coal for solar? Building new solar costs about two thirds what it costs to run an existing coal plant.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Now it does. Not 20-30 years ago. And then building more gas would have been cheaper, specially in the early 2000s. The government has used many mechanism to push those things, not sure how that's questionable. Including to force Utilities to adopt renewable energy (even those that already had carbon free nuclear). Other laws that prevent pricing on intermittence. Support and tax-breaks for rooftop solar. And lots of other policies.
    - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
      Exactly like the huge subsidies nuclear power have had for the past 70 years? The difference is for renewables the cost savings panned out, while nuclear has only gotten more expensive. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, that is why we see mass adoption. Stop crying over spilled milk because nuclear never materialized, embrace the technology that are forcing true change.
godelski 3y ago
The problem is both (and more) are true. Public outcry is a significant effect. Cost is a significant effect. Over regulation is a significant effect. Worse, these are coupled. The result is often that people say x -> y! And stop there. But it's not an acrylic graph so narrow views don't work and simply trap us in this circular argument we've had for 40 years now (not unique to nuclear either). Truth is public outcry influences regulation which influences cost which influences outcry and so on and on. There is no root to point to as the start and there are arguments you can make about any of these being the start because influence doesn't mean sole contributing factor. As an example, you can argue cost is related to regulation and even that lack of innovation have been "caused" by public outcry (or claim regulatory costs/lack of innovation are confounders). Certainly it is a causal variable, but multiple causal variables can contribute to something. Truth is there are unique costs to nuclear independent of regulatory concerns. There's a reason you'll find far more physicists actively managing a nuclear power plant than a wind farm. There's also different dangers and uniquely there are proliferation concerns which do impose unique regulation. Can all this be better optimized? Certainly! But we can never do that if we are just going to endlessly have these circular arguments. I know the weeds and details often don't matter for many subject matters (actually I think this is naive) but can we at least admit that nuclear power is at least a little bit complicated? And that there's a unique history? And that any opinion that is not formed through years of schooling and experience in the field is de facto naive? No matter how many youtube videos or articles you read from science communicators and even if you have a degree in physics because there's more to the problem that simply nuclear physics? Most importantly, can we also admit that it's perfectly okay to have naive opinions? Literally nothing wrong with them unless high confidence is placed in those opinions. We're all smart people here, right?[0] So we recognize that the modern world is built via specialization and no person can really be an expert in all things, and realistically only in a few? Fuck man, I think one of the great filters is when a species gets to the point where approximate/naive solutions are no longer effective and they just fucking kill themselves because evolutionary pressure makes these solutions incredibly effective in the beginning but makes those same species ill equipped once a certain level of complexity is reached. I just wonder if we're intelligent enough to overcome these limitations in more than narrow settings (sure, you're smart in x, but are you okay being dumb at y?). Certainly the capacity exists. [0] If we all know what you're (ambiguous) going to comment in response to this line, are you proving you're "better" or demonstrating your lack of intelligence? Please, just don't. Respond to something more substantial.

philwelch 3y ago

Almost all of the cost issues with nuclear power is regulatory in nature. https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...

IntelMiner 3y ago
With how brazenly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been captured? Unlikely
epistasis 3y ago
Even if this were true (and I have my doubts), nobody has a proposal for a different regulatory scheme that would lower costs. France has seen similarly high costs with an entirely different regulatory scheme, for example. "Regulations" are the excuse of people that didn't do their homework or prepare for the serious work of large construction projects. All of which have huge overruns in the US, regulations or not. In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem. Advanced economies have far more productive uses for workers than sitting around construction sites, waiting for something to arrive so that they can finally do a small amount of work before waiting some more.
- philwelch 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Oh I've read that thing many times, it gets linked everywhere...
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem. Yes, and the gigantism of the projects does not help. Here's an example [1]. Last week they mounted the reactor dome at Hinkley. Here's a quote: > Using one of the world's largest cranes, known as Big Carl, the dome - with a diameter of almost 47 metres, height of 14 metres and weighing 245 tonnes - was lifted and then slowly lowered onto the 44-metre-high reactor building. SMRs would address that. Every single thing about gigawatt scale reactors is extremely expensive. If you reduce the scale of the reactor by a factor of 10, then you won't need "Big Carl", you would not need a 245 ton dome, you wouldn't need containment vessels that can only be build by a handful of forges in the world [2] (none in the US). You are absolutely right, this has nothing to do with the NRC. They have a job to do, and in a world where Fukushima can happen, you can't be too careful. But can SMRs reduce construction costs? The anti-nuclear crowd is dancing in the streets for the failure of NuScale to keep the Utah project alive. But NuScale is a player with zero experience. There are numerous other players [3] that actually build reactors. For example one is BWXT, a company that makes nuclear reactors for the US Navy. [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hinkley-Point-C-landmark-dome-lift-in-pictures https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hinkley-Point-C-... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... [3] https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_booklet_2022.pdf https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_booklet_2022.pdf
  - camel_gopher 3y ago
    The mass production aspect of SMRs should provide some economies of scale for construction costs. Needing a large crane doesn’t scale.

panick21_ 3y ago

Nuclear didn't make it because coal was to cheap. People now are willing to pay more for solar/wind and so on, and government is willing to help pay for it. This wasn't the case for Nuclear in the 70/80s. Combine that with the complete rewrite of regulation and the whole governmental structure in regards to nuclear, making them much tougher to build, killing much of the research, limited political support from either side and so on and so on. They had to essentially rebuild plants according to newer standards stopping all new construction. While some of those changes were worthy, its also objectively true that coal plants were not subjected to nearly as much additional regulation despite them being much less save both for the workers and for the population around. So if you have one standard of safety applied to one thing, and a completely different standard to another thing, then of course nuclear can't win in a market situation. Large scale nuclear is successful if you can do it at scale. But that needs a top down approach or at least government approval and support. Had nuclear received the kind of support wind/solar had in the last 20 years, the US would have transition to nuclear at a rate comparable to the adoption of oil.

wffurr 3y ago
Who is paying more than coal for solar? Building new solar costs about two thirds what it costs to run an existing coal plant.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Now it does. Not 20-30 years ago. And then building more gas would have been cheaper, specially in the early 2000s. The government has used many mechanism to push those things, not sure how that's questionable. Including to force Utilities to adopt renewable energy (even those that already had carbon free nuclear). Other laws that prevent pricing on intermittence. Support and tax-breaks for rooftop solar. And lots of other policies.
  - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
    Exactly like the huge subsidies nuclear power have had for the past 70 years? The difference is for renewables the cost savings panned out, while nuclear has only gotten more expensive. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, that is why we see mass adoption. Stop crying over spilled milk because nuclear never materialized, embrace the technology that are forcing true change.

godelski 3y ago

The problem is both (and more) are true. Public outcry is a significant effect. Cost is a significant effect. Over regulation is a significant effect. Worse, these are coupled. The result is often that people say x -> y! And stop there. But it's not an acrylic graph so narrow views don't work and simply trap us in this circular argument we've had for 40 years now (not unique to nuclear either). Truth is public outcry influences regulation which influences cost which influences outcry and so on and on. There is no root to point to as the start and there are arguments you can make about any of these being the start because influence doesn't mean sole contributing factor. As an example, you can argue cost is related to regulation and even that lack of innovation have been "caused" by public outcry (or claim regulatory costs/lack of innovation are confounders). Certainly it is a causal variable, but multiple causal variables can contribute to something. Truth is there are unique costs to nuclear independent of regulatory concerns. There's a reason you'll find far more physicists actively managing a nuclear power plant than a wind farm. There's also different dangers and uniquely there are proliferation concerns which do impose unique regulation. Can all this be better optimized? Certainly! But we can never do that if we are just going to endlessly have these circular arguments. I know the weeds and details often don't matter for many subject matters (actually I think this is naive) but can we at least admit that nuclear power is at least a little bit complicated? And that there's a unique history? And that any opinion that is not formed through years of schooling and experience in the field is de facto naive? No matter how many youtube videos or articles you read from science communicators and even if you have a degree in physics because there's more to the problem that simply nuclear physics? Most importantly, can we also admit that it's perfectly okay to have naive opinions? Literally nothing wrong with them unless high confidence is placed in those opinions. We're all smart people here, right?[0] So we recognize that the modern world is built via specialization and no person can really be an expert in all things, and realistically only in a few? Fuck man, I think one of the great filters is when a species gets to the point where approximate/naive solutions are no longer effective and they just fucking kill themselves because evolutionary pressure makes these solutions incredibly effective in the beginning but makes those same species ill equipped once a certain level of complexity is reached. I just wonder if we're intelligent enough to overcome these limitations in more than narrow settings (sure, you're smart in x, but are you okay being dumb at y?). Certainly the capacity exists. [0] If we all know what you're (ambiguous) going to comment in response to this line, are you proving you're "better" or demonstrating your lack of intelligence? Please, just don't. Respond to something more substantial.