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Don't know how it is for Chinese projects, but in the west you should not compare actual cost of A with projected cost of B, because with such projects we repea

Don't know how it is for Chinese projects, but in the west you should not compare actual cost of A with projected cost of B, because with such projects we repeatedly see that the actual cost can be a multiple of the projected costs, especially for nuclear power. For Chinese projects we can assume that the price tag also doesn't match the actual costs (similar to French nuclear projects) due to heavy government subsidies.

throwup238 2y ago
> For Chinese projects we can assume that the price tag also doesn't match the actual costs (similar to French nuclear projects) due to heavy government subsidies. Why would China subsidize a $5 billion reactor in Pakistan? That's not their MO with the Belt and Road initiative - China prefers to inflate sticker prices and loan more money to the buyer, building more economic influence. The project certainly benefits from the economies of scale thanks to all the reactors China builds, but it hardly helps to conflate that with actual subsidies.
- stkdump 2y ago
  Once the central government has decided what they want, China absolutely has a track record of extremely heavy subsidies, both for domestic market and for export. Like you say, it is to get to that sweet 'economies of scale' (or to say it more honestly, pricing others out of the market). There is one other interesting tidbit about the pricing of energy projects. Renewables have been scrutinized about their price to an unprecendented extent. Before renewables, costs were usually a minor concern in the public debate when it came to build-out of energy infrastructure. In the nuclear heavy country like France (which did benefit from the so called 'economy of scale' most, in their case it was more the will for nuclear armament), the government decides the prices for households. They had to increase it steeply in the last decade, and a government commission suggested to further increase it by 74% this year. The government decided to only increase it by 10%. I guess they are a bit afraid of the protest-loving population. Nobody cares for costs, if they don't see it. In Germany meanwhile the subsidies (for renewables mind you, not for all the other forms of energy) actually work in a way that they are added to the price of all electricity. So while German and French prices get closer and closer now, the German household electricity prices reflect the total cost much better than the French prices. Now we have enough data to not just project costs, but also we know what we actually pay. And contrary to what everyone believed, renewables are actually the cheapest form of energy we can get. And when you look at the fundamental physical process, it even makes sense. No need to dig anything out of the ground, because the source that put all this into the ground actually is accessible on the surface. No need to create a process that biological beings never used for energy. Wind and solar are just technological variations on the theme that evolution put into live and proven for billions of years. It just makes sense to leverage for the bulk of our energy needs until such time when our energy needs overtake what is accessible so easily. That may be a century from now or even farther in the future.

throwup238 2y ago

> For Chinese projects we can assume that the price tag also doesn't match the actual costs (similar to French nuclear projects) due to heavy government subsidies. Why would China subsidize a $5 billion reactor in Pakistan? That's not their MO with the Belt and Road initiative - China prefers to inflate sticker prices and loan more money to the buyer, building more economic influence. The project certainly benefits from the economies of scale thanks to all the reactors China builds, but it hardly helps to conflate that with actual subsidies.

stkdump 2y ago
Once the central government has decided what they want, China absolutely has a track record of extremely heavy subsidies, both for domestic market and for export. Like you say, it is to get to that sweet 'economies of scale' (or to say it more honestly, pricing others out of the market). There is one other interesting tidbit about the pricing of energy projects. Renewables have been scrutinized about their price to an unprecendented extent. Before renewables, costs were usually a minor concern in the public debate when it came to build-out of energy infrastructure. In the nuclear heavy country like France (which did benefit from the so called 'economy of scale' most, in their case it was more the will for nuclear armament), the government decides the prices for households. They had to increase it steeply in the last decade, and a government commission suggested to further increase it by 74% this year. The government decided to only increase it by 10%. I guess they are a bit afraid of the protest-loving population. Nobody cares for costs, if they don't see it. In Germany meanwhile the subsidies (for renewables mind you, not for all the other forms of energy) actually work in a way that they are added to the price of all electricity. So while German and French prices get closer and closer now, the German household electricity prices reflect the total cost much better than the French prices. Now we have enough data to not just project costs, but also we know what we actually pay. And contrary to what everyone believed, renewables are actually the cheapest form of energy we can get. And when you look at the fundamental physical process, it even makes sense. No need to dig anything out of the ground, because the source that put all this into the ground actually is accessible on the surface. No need to create a process that biological beings never used for energy. Wind and solar are just technological variations on the theme that evolution put into live and proven for billions of years. It just makes sense to leverage for the bulk of our energy needs until such time when our energy needs overtake what is accessible so easily. That may be a century from now or even farther in the future.