9 ms·

Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

80 points by chickenbig 2y ago

rubynerd 2y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240923081026/https://www.building.co.uk/buildings/hinkley-point-c-building-britains-first-nuclear-reactor-in-30-years/5130997.article- https://web.archive.org/web/20240923081026/https://www.build... --- Additional reading if you haven't read it before, "Nothing like this will be built again" about Torness: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-l...? Previously posted several times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=nothing%20like%20this%20will%20be%20built%20again&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
roenxi 2y ago
> As the cost of Hinkley Point has increased, the backers have had to provide more funding. The souring of relations between Britain and China saw CGN stop providing any more money, leaving EDF to fund the shortfall. EDF has called upon the UK government to help out with the escalating cost but it has refused. EDF was fully nationalised in 2023, leaving the French taxpayer to pick up the tab for the cost overruns. That paragraph might be the high point of the article.
- dingdingdang 2y ago
  Absolutely. Thanks for the highlighting! Edit: It's a two-in-one good news afaiac: China withdrawing funding(/influence) and some sort of accountability applied to mega projects rather than just throwing (and eventually devaluing) more and more money at things.
  - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
    I’m not sure what the win is here. I doubt the French tax payer is winning and the French government is trying for the UK to help with the bill.
- snalty 2y ago
  It's about time our national infrastructure benefitted from foreign taxpayer money, considering how often it's been the other way around! Especially with the railways.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Didn't you put yourself in that situation?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      In UK elections, because it's not a 2-party system, the winner usually has less than half of the votes. But even if they didn't, losers don't have to take it quietly. But even if they did, governments are complex representatives, not ongoing referendums on each individual topic, so we can agree with 80% of the party we vote for and strongly disagree with the rest of their policies. The cynical alternative is that democracy is a way to get everyone to shut up: if you voted for them it's your fault, if you voted against them you need to obey the will of the people (if you voted for a minor party you wasted your vote), if you're too young to vote then you're naïve to real issues, and if you didn't vote at all then you silenced yourself. (Sometimes I'm the cynic).
      - Gud 2y ago
        *representative democracy, the lowest form of democracy.
      - pjc50 2y ago
        > democracy is a way to get everyone to shut up Democracy is a way to get people to acquiesce without violence. If you look at history, it's remarkable how common insurgencies and succession crises or breakaway warlords are.
        mncharity 2y ago
        A recent discussion[1] suggests China's ~500 CE Keju imperial exam was designed as a royal ranking system to reduce violent political fights between noble houses. But at a cost of stagnated innovation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41624827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41624827
- chickenbig 2y ago
  And this level of risk (and realised overrun) accounts for part of the higher CfD price at the start.
- griffzhowl 2y ago
  OTOH if I understand it right the French "taxpayer", i.e. govt, will be the beneficiary of the above-market price for electricity produced by the plant that the UK has guaranteed, presumably for the lifespan of the plant, which is 60 years. So I presume that will be a net gain for France, otherwise there would be no sense in continuing with the project.
  - davedx 2y ago
    Weren’t those agreements made way back before the giant cost overuns?
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Yes. Huge mistake for France, that. Fixed price contracts in the nuclear industry have rarely if ever worked out well for the suppliers. Contrast this with renewables which typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.
      - tonyedgecombe 2y ago
        Yes, it seems the only projects that have larger cost overruns than nuclear power stations is dealing with nuclear waste.
        chickenbig 2y ago
        I take it you are referring to https://x.com/BentFlyvbjerg/status/1662016016493191169 https://x.com/BentFlyvbjerg/status/1662016016493191169 Interestingly the nuclear data implies that those (45% of) projects not in the tail (defined as >= 50% cost overrun) have a mean overrun of 17.33%. 120% = 0.45 * X% + 0.55 * 204% therefore X% = (120% - 0.55 * 204%)/0.45 = 17.33%
        chickenbig 2y ago
        Don't forget the Olympics, with a format designed to minimise the learnings. Note that the point of the article was that the design is being proven, lessons are being learnt, and the skills of individuals and organisations developed, which reduces the risk of overruns etc.
dvh 2y ago
What would be equivalent solar/wind installed power?
- blitzar 2y ago
  Dogger Bank Wind Farm
  - defrost 2y ago
    Each phase will have an installed generation capacity of 1.2GW and represents a multi-billion pound investment. Combined, they will have an installed capacity of 3.6GW and will be capable of powering up to 6 million homes annually. ~ https://doggerbank.com/ https://doggerbank.com/ Sounds about right in scale .. how many homes in the UK in total?
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      > how many homes in the UK in total? About 25 million it seems. https://www.statista.com/statistics/378391/uk-england-housing-dwelling-stock-total/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/378391/uk-england-housin...
    - griffzhowl 2y ago
      Thing is, "capacity" is the maximum generation in ideal conditions, so for wind the actual produced amount will be much lower than this.
      - OtherShrezzing 2y ago
        The UK is a bit of a special case here. Although what you said is literally true, our wind energy has only 5% of the country's capacity, but provides nearly 30% of the consumed energy.
      - defrost 2y ago
        The Dogger Bank Wind site recognises this and bases the number of households serviced on proven reasonable wind conditions (apparently) 6 million homes powered per annum based on Typical Domestic Consumption Values (Medium Electricity Profile Class 1, 2,900kWh per household; OFGEM, January 2021), typical 55% wind load factor, and projected installed capacity of 3.6GW.
dingdingdang 2y ago
Very good to hear about upskilling taking place but also immensely sobering numbers (i.e. 1300 apprentices is seen a big uplift) for a country the size of the UK.
- chickenbig 2y ago
  https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-sta... 118,770 apprenticeships achieved in the UK last year. We're not that big on practical education, with a preference for getting degrees so we can sit behind a desk moving (electronic) paper.
  - defrost 2y ago
    With 800,000 people (male and female) aged 20 (mid 2021) in a total population of 69 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kin...
    - exe34 2y ago
      I'm so never retiring.
  - matt-p 2y ago
    I would also just say that a half of these 118,770 were over 25 Years old when they started, and only 44% of the total are for "advanced" level starts. They are often not very high quality, sometimes it will be things like the person who puts bread in the oven at a supermarket getting a level 2 in kitchen skills and so on. 1,300 high quality apprenticeships is noticeable (which is nuts).
  - youngtaff 2y ago
    Tragedy is that something like 50% of people don't complete their apprenticeships Provision seem to be very mixed - we know some teenagers who've had good ones and others who've had awful ones and these were in practical skills Best one I know of was a degree apprenticeship for one of the big accountancy firms. Person started work at 18, had a degree in their early twenties while being paid all the way through, and no student debt at the end
anovikov 2y ago
It will produce annually, about as much electricity as UK produces now from solar. Which is installed at a much faster clip than these two sad reactors are built, even if UK is one of the worst countries for solar in the civilised world due to expensive land and terrible weather. What's even the point? Maybe this reactor is a live testament to the observation that "any new nuclear starting construction today will be obsolete before it's completed, due to competition from renewables"? It's been started almost 10 years ago and it seems to be already there.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  That the energy is produced during night, winter and heavily overcast times...
  - anovikov 2y ago
    There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity system that combines solar, wind, and hydro, does not need any storage at all, or very moderate amounts of storage to achieve no or almost no losses.
    - dageshi 2y ago
      Is there? What storage?
      - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
        Batteries?
        Moldoteck 2y ago
        lol, look at California and how much it imports & used gas. And that's WITH a nuclear plant. Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten
tikkabhuna 2y ago
I'm glad the article talks about the positive impact this will have on Sizewell C. The UK completely disregards the long term impact of skills and experience lost when debating whether we should do this kind of project.
- chickenbig 2y ago
  Of course, EDF is trying to push the Sizewell C Final Investment Decision over the line, but equally a skilled workforce is being trained for these most complex of projects. https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c/realising-socio-economic-benefits https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/... It takes time to find and develop good people, so hopefully Sizewell C plus Rolls Royce SMR will gain momentum to allow their retention.
Moldoteck 2y ago
As far as I understood it takes so long because UK has some customization requirements which impacted a lot delivery time
- mpweiher 2y ago
  That's one of the reasons. Others include, but are not limited to: 1. The EPR is a FOAK build of a new design All of the EPR instances were started before any other instances were completed. FOAK (First of a Kind) builds are notoriously more difficult, costly and risky than NOAK (Nth of a Kind) builds. Think how much more a prototype of car costs than one you get off the assembly line. The difference is not quite that pronounced, but it's there. 2. No nuclear industry/workforce I think the article goes into this, but a lot of the cost of HPC, Olkiluoto and Flamanville (as well as Vogtle-3/4) is simply for rebuilding nuclear expertise both in industry and in the workforce. China also buit both EPRs and AP-1000s, and they did it quite a bit more quickly and cheaply, because they have an experienced workforce and industry at hand. They current have 20+ reactors under construction. That makes a huge difference as we know from experience. Just in Germany, the difference between one-off reactors and the Konvois that were built at the same time in series was around 2x. However, even in China the EPR took longer than other reactors. Partly due to it being a FOAK design, but also for the third reason: 3. The EPR is too complicated For various reasons, the EPR is far too complicated, and in the end not a good design. Which is one of the things you find out in FOAK builds (see point 1). That's not me saying this, it's the manufacturer, EDF. They have abandoned the EPR design, all new French reactors will be the vastly simplified EPR2. I haven't been able to find out whether Sizewell C and subsequent will also be EPR2 or whether the UK will stick with its heavily modified EPR. One example is that the EPR has quadruple independent cooling systems. This is in order to maintain triple redundancy while doing maintenance on the cooling system, so being able to do that maintenance without having to take the reactor offline. Considering the German PWRs were above 90% capacity factor with "just" triple redundancy, this seems to be gold-plating. Nice-to-have if you can pull it off, but it appears they couldn't pull it off. Also, all those cooling systems have to be active in order to comply with German nuclear regulations. The somewhat silly reason is that German regulators both (a) had no experience with passive cooling systems and (b) had a prescriptive approach to regulation, rather than a requirements-based approach. So "you must build a cooling system like this" rather than "your cooling system must be able to do this". It's is also obviously a bit redundant considering that Germany no longer operates nuclear power plants and isn't exactly currently in the market for an EPR. The Westinghouse AP-1000 uses at least some passive cooling, which is not only more reliable but also simpler, smaller and cheaper and makes the total plant a lot smaller. Once you've built one, the EPR is apparently a great reactor (the Fins are very happy with theirs), and should last a long time, but it's just a pain to build.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
The budget overruns are predictable. To the point where you can confidently predict that neither year nor the budget will stay as they are currently predicting. Honestly, it sounds more like wishful thinking at this point. I would say late 2030s at probably > 40 billion is realistic. They'll find a way to make it worse. Maybe they'll get lucky and only overrun only a few billion. Every year it overruns will cost billions. The reasons listed in the article dance around the real underlying reasons and causes which relate to nuclear plants being a once in a generation kind of thing at this point. Most of the people executing these projects are on their first nuclear project. And they have to re-learn a lot of the things that make these projects complicated. There is no learning effect between projects. And in so far there is, it seems to be a negative one. And by the time they are done, there's a new generation that needs to build the next one. The timescale doesn't help either because lots of things change and assumptions get broken. For example the relationship with China looks a lot less cozy than it did ten years ago. And that might change substantially again in the next ten. So them being a major partner in this project complicates things. In the same way, the relationship with Russia changed so relying on them for supplying the fuel rods might not be as good as an idea as it was back when Finland started planning its plant (the predecessor to this one). It's hard to predict these things on a multi decade scale. So, we're talking major changes with suppliers, project participants, and probably technology as well. And the competition. The reason renewables are running circles around everything else is because planning cycles are short (<1-2 years), knowledge isn't lost in between projects, and consequently these projects are fairly predictable in terms of budgets and generally low risk. There's still some risk but most of that is bureaucracy. And it gets better with each project because of learning effects. Once you've done 100 wind mills, doing a 1000 more is going to be a lot easier. Hinkley point C is about 3.4 GW of energy. Not nothing. But the UK has added a multitude in wind and solar since planning started and will add another multitude of energy by its completion (whenever that is). It's not even going to be close. Coal had a major market share when planning started (more than nuclear). The last coal plant in the UK closed last month. By the time this nuclear plant opens that will be ancient history and most of the grid in the UK will be wind, solar, batteries, imported power from abroad (cables), and a few gas plants. The good news would be getting rid of those remaining gas plants.
- 2y ago
swijck 2y ago
Finally good news from the UK!
mhandley 2y ago
Yes, Hinkley and Sizewell may be expensive - but they're unlikely to be that much more expensive than wind/PV plus enough storage to provide reliable 24/7/365 power. In the end, I'd much rather have some diversity in the system. If the choice was 100% nuclear vs 100% wind/PV, the answer would probably be different, but for 15% of the UK's capacity to come from a reliable (but expensive) source that is uncorrelated with wind or PV downtime, that extra cost seems to be a good investment to me.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Why hold wind to a higher standard than a nuclear plant? A nuclear plant typically has 95% uptime. Wind/PV/storage can hit 95% or 99% or 99.9% a lot cheaper than Hinkley can hit 95%.
  - mhandley 2y ago
    I'm not holding wind to a higher standard - I'd rather have two pretty reliable sources whose downtime is uncorrelated.
  - throw0101b 2y ago
    > Wind/PV/storage can hit 95% or 99% or 99.9% a lot cheaper than Hinkley can hit 95%. I think the geography of the UK helps with offshore wind getting good capacity factors, but the general averages aren't great, often peaking at ~40%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor As someone who lives in Ontario, Canada, I can see in real-time how wind goes up and down, while nuclear just keeps chugging along: * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data § Supply And nuclear is cheaper (CA$0.101/kWh) than wind ($0.147) or solar ($0.474); see Table 2: * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023... Of course our infrastructure and/or geography may not be as well-suited for wind.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Nuclear is only 10 cents / kWh after the OEB has off-loaded all the costs for building and decommissioning to the federal and provincial governments.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

80 points by chickenbig 2y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240923081026/https://www.building.co.uk/buildings/hinkley-point-c-building-britains-first-nuclear-reactor-in-30-years/5130997.article- https://web.archive.org/web/20240923081026/https://www.build... --- Additional reading if you haven't read it before, "Nothing like this will be built again" about Torness: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-l...? Previously posted several times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=nothing%20like%20this%20will%20be%20built%20again&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

roenxi 2y ago

> As the cost of Hinkley Point has increased, the backers have had to provide more funding. The souring of relations between Britain and China saw CGN stop providing any more money, leaving EDF to fund the shortfall. EDF has called upon the UK government to help out with the escalating cost but it has refused. EDF was fully nationalised in 2023, leaving the French taxpayer to pick up the tab for the cost overruns. That paragraph might be the high point of the article.

dingdingdang 2y ago
Absolutely. Thanks for the highlighting! Edit: It's a two-in-one good news afaiac: China withdrawing funding(/influence) and some sort of accountability applied to mega projects rather than just throwing (and eventually devaluing) more and more money at things.
- the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
  I’m not sure what the win is here. I doubt the French tax payer is winning and the French government is trying for the UK to help with the bill.
snalty 2y ago
It's about time our national infrastructure benefitted from foreign taxpayer money, considering how often it's been the other way around! Especially with the railways.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  Didn't you put yourself in that situation?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    In UK elections, because it's not a 2-party system, the winner usually has less than half of the votes. But even if they didn't, losers don't have to take it quietly. But even if they did, governments are complex representatives, not ongoing referendums on each individual topic, so we can agree with 80% of the party we vote for and strongly disagree with the rest of their policies. The cynical alternative is that democracy is a way to get everyone to shut up: if you voted for them it's your fault, if you voted against them you need to obey the will of the people (if you voted for a minor party you wasted your vote), if you're too young to vote then you're naïve to real issues, and if you didn't vote at all then you silenced yourself. (Sometimes I'm the cynic).
    - Gud 2y ago
      *representative democracy, the lowest form of democracy.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      > democracy is a way to get everyone to shut up Democracy is a way to get people to acquiesce without violence. If you look at history, it's remarkable how common insurgencies and succession crises or breakaway warlords are.
      - mncharity 2y ago
        A recent discussion[1] suggests China's ~500 CE Keju imperial exam was designed as a royal ranking system to reduce violent political fights between noble houses. But at a cost of stagnated innovation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41624827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41624827
chickenbig 2y ago
And this level of risk (and realised overrun) accounts for part of the higher CfD price at the start.
griffzhowl 2y ago
OTOH if I understand it right the French "taxpayer", i.e. govt, will be the beneficiary of the above-market price for electricity produced by the plant that the UK has guaranteed, presumably for the lifespan of the plant, which is 60 years. So I presume that will be a net gain for France, otherwise there would be no sense in continuing with the project.
- davedx 2y ago
  Weren’t those agreements made way back before the giant cost overuns?
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Yes. Huge mistake for France, that. Fixed price contracts in the nuclear industry have rarely if ever worked out well for the suppliers. Contrast this with renewables which typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.
    - tonyedgecombe 2y ago
      Yes, it seems the only projects that have larger cost overruns than nuclear power stations is dealing with nuclear waste.
      - chickenbig 2y ago
        I take it you are referring to https://x.com/BentFlyvbjerg/status/1662016016493191169 https://x.com/BentFlyvbjerg/status/1662016016493191169 Interestingly the nuclear data implies that those (45% of) projects not in the tail (defined as >= 50% cost overrun) have a mean overrun of 17.33%. 120% = 0.45 * X% + 0.55 * 204% therefore X% = (120% - 0.55 * 204%)/0.45 = 17.33%
      - chickenbig 2y ago
        Don't forget the Olympics, with a format designed to minimise the learnings. Note that the point of the article was that the design is being proven, lessons are being learnt, and the skills of individuals and organisations developed, which reduces the risk of overruns etc.

dvh 2y ago

What would be equivalent solar/wind installed power?

blitzar 2y ago
Dogger Bank Wind Farm
- defrost 2y ago
  Each phase will have an installed generation capacity of 1.2GW and represents a multi-billion pound investment. Combined, they will have an installed capacity of 3.6GW and will be capable of powering up to 6 million homes annually. ~ https://doggerbank.com/ https://doggerbank.com/ Sounds about right in scale .. how many homes in the UK in total?
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    > how many homes in the UK in total? About 25 million it seems. https://www.statista.com/statistics/378391/uk-england-housing-dwelling-stock-total/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/378391/uk-england-housin...
  - griffzhowl 2y ago
    Thing is, "capacity" is the maximum generation in ideal conditions, so for wind the actual produced amount will be much lower than this.
    - OtherShrezzing 2y ago
      The UK is a bit of a special case here. Although what you said is literally true, our wind energy has only 5% of the country's capacity, but provides nearly 30% of the consumed energy.
    - defrost 2y ago
      The Dogger Bank Wind site recognises this and bases the number of households serviced on proven reasonable wind conditions (apparently) 6 million homes powered per annum based on Typical Domestic Consumption Values (Medium Electricity Profile Class 1, 2,900kWh per household; OFGEM, January 2021), typical 55% wind load factor, and projected installed capacity of 3.6GW.

dingdingdang 2y ago

Very good to hear about upskilling taking place but also immensely sobering numbers (i.e. 1300 apprentices is seen a big uplift) for a country the size of the UK.

chickenbig 2y ago
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-sta... 118,770 apprenticeships achieved in the UK last year. We're not that big on practical education, with a preference for getting degrees so we can sit behind a desk moving (electronic) paper.
- defrost 2y ago
  With 800,000 people (male and female) aged 20 (mid 2021) in a total population of 69 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kin...
  - exe34 2y ago
    I'm so never retiring.
- matt-p 2y ago
  I would also just say that a half of these 118,770 were over 25 Years old when they started, and only 44% of the total are for "advanced" level starts. They are often not very high quality, sometimes it will be things like the person who puts bread in the oven at a supermarket getting a level 2 in kitchen skills and so on. 1,300 high quality apprenticeships is noticeable (which is nuts).
- youngtaff 2y ago
  Tragedy is that something like 50% of people don't complete their apprenticeships Provision seem to be very mixed - we know some teenagers who've had good ones and others who've had awful ones and these were in practical skills Best one I know of was a degree apprenticeship for one of the big accountancy firms. Person started work at 18, had a degree in their early twenties while being paid all the way through, and no student debt at the end

anovikov 2y ago

It will produce annually, about as much electricity as UK produces now from solar. Which is installed at a much faster clip than these two sad reactors are built, even if UK is one of the worst countries for solar in the civilised world due to expensive land and terrible weather. What's even the point? Maybe this reactor is a live testament to the observation that "any new nuclear starting construction today will be obsolete before it's completed, due to competition from renewables"? It's been started almost 10 years ago and it seems to be already there.

Ekaros 2y ago
That the energy is produced during night, winter and heavily overcast times...
- anovikov 2y ago
  There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity system that combines solar, wind, and hydro, does not need any storage at all, or very moderate amounts of storage to achieve no or almost no losses.
  - dageshi 2y ago
    Is there? What storage?
    - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
      Batteries?
      - Moldoteck 2y ago
        lol, look at California and how much it imports & used gas. And that's WITH a nuclear plant. Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten

tikkabhuna 2y ago

I'm glad the article talks about the positive impact this will have on Sizewell C. The UK completely disregards the long term impact of skills and experience lost when debating whether we should do this kind of project.

chickenbig 2y ago
Of course, EDF is trying to push the Sizewell C Final Investment Decision over the line, but equally a skilled workforce is being trained for these most complex of projects. https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c/realising-socio-economic-benefits https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/... It takes time to find and develop good people, so hopefully Sizewell C plus Rolls Royce SMR will gain momentum to allow their retention.

Moldoteck 2y ago

As far as I understood it takes so long because UK has some customization requirements which impacted a lot delivery time

mpweiher 2y ago
That's one of the reasons. Others include, but are not limited to: 1. The EPR is a FOAK build of a new design All of the EPR instances were started before any other instances were completed. FOAK (First of a Kind) builds are notoriously more difficult, costly and risky than NOAK (Nth of a Kind) builds. Think how much more a prototype of car costs than one you get off the assembly line. The difference is not quite that pronounced, but it's there. 2. No nuclear industry/workforce I think the article goes into this, but a lot of the cost of HPC, Olkiluoto and Flamanville (as well as Vogtle-3/4) is simply for rebuilding nuclear expertise both in industry and in the workforce. China also buit both EPRs and AP-1000s, and they did it quite a bit more quickly and cheaply, because they have an experienced workforce and industry at hand. They current have 20+ reactors under construction. That makes a huge difference as we know from experience. Just in Germany, the difference between one-off reactors and the Konvois that were built at the same time in series was around 2x. However, even in China the EPR took longer than other reactors. Partly due to it being a FOAK design, but also for the third reason: 3. The EPR is too complicated For various reasons, the EPR is far too complicated, and in the end not a good design. Which is one of the things you find out in FOAK builds (see point 1). That's not me saying this, it's the manufacturer, EDF. They have abandoned the EPR design, all new French reactors will be the vastly simplified EPR2. I haven't been able to find out whether Sizewell C and subsequent will also be EPR2 or whether the UK will stick with its heavily modified EPR. One example is that the EPR has quadruple independent cooling systems. This is in order to maintain triple redundancy while doing maintenance on the cooling system, so being able to do that maintenance without having to take the reactor offline. Considering the German PWRs were above 90% capacity factor with "just" triple redundancy, this seems to be gold-plating. Nice-to-have if you can pull it off, but it appears they couldn't pull it off. Also, all those cooling systems have to be active in order to comply with German nuclear regulations. The somewhat silly reason is that German regulators both (a) had no experience with passive cooling systems and (b) had a prescriptive approach to regulation, rather than a requirements-based approach. So "you must build a cooling system like this" rather than "your cooling system must be able to do this". It's is also obviously a bit redundant considering that Germany no longer operates nuclear power plants and isn't exactly currently in the market for an EPR. The Westinghouse AP-1000 uses at least some passive cooling, which is not only more reliable but also simpler, smaller and cheaper and makes the total plant a lot smaller. Once you've built one, the EPR is apparently a great reactor (the Fins are very happy with theirs), and should last a long time, but it's just a pain to build.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

The budget overruns are predictable. To the point where you can confidently predict that neither year nor the budget will stay as they are currently predicting. Honestly, it sounds more like wishful thinking at this point. I would say late 2030s at probably > 40 billion is realistic. They'll find a way to make it worse. Maybe they'll get lucky and only overrun only a few billion. Every year it overruns will cost billions. The reasons listed in the article dance around the real underlying reasons and causes which relate to nuclear plants being a once in a generation kind of thing at this point. Most of the people executing these projects are on their first nuclear project. And they have to re-learn a lot of the things that make these projects complicated. There is no learning effect between projects. And in so far there is, it seems to be a negative one. And by the time they are done, there's a new generation that needs to build the next one. The timescale doesn't help either because lots of things change and assumptions get broken. For example the relationship with China looks a lot less cozy than it did ten years ago. And that might change substantially again in the next ten. So them being a major partner in this project complicates things. In the same way, the relationship with Russia changed so relying on them for supplying the fuel rods might not be as good as an idea as it was back when Finland started planning its plant (the predecessor to this one). It's hard to predict these things on a multi decade scale. So, we're talking major changes with suppliers, project participants, and probably technology as well. And the competition. The reason renewables are running circles around everything else is because planning cycles are short (<1-2 years), knowledge isn't lost in between projects, and consequently these projects are fairly predictable in terms of budgets and generally low risk. There's still some risk but most of that is bureaucracy. And it gets better with each project because of learning effects. Once you've done 100 wind mills, doing a 1000 more is going to be a lot easier. Hinkley point C is about 3.4 GW of energy. Not nothing. But the UK has added a multitude in wind and solar since planning started and will add another multitude of energy by its completion (whenever that is). It's not even going to be close. Coal had a major market share when planning started (more than nuclear). The last coal plant in the UK closed last month. By the time this nuclear plant opens that will be ancient history and most of the grid in the UK will be wind, solar, batteries, imported power from abroad (cables), and a few gas plants. The good news would be getting rid of those remaining gas plants.

2y ago

swijck 2y ago

Finally good news from the UK!

mhandley 2y ago

Yes, Hinkley and Sizewell may be expensive - but they're unlikely to be that much more expensive than wind/PV plus enough storage to provide reliable 24/7/365 power. In the end, I'd much rather have some diversity in the system. If the choice was 100% nuclear vs 100% wind/PV, the answer would probably be different, but for 15% of the UK's capacity to come from a reliable (but expensive) source that is uncorrelated with wind or PV downtime, that extra cost seems to be a good investment to me.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Why hold wind to a higher standard than a nuclear plant? A nuclear plant typically has 95% uptime. Wind/PV/storage can hit 95% or 99% or 99.9% a lot cheaper than Hinkley can hit 95%.
- mhandley 2y ago
  I'm not holding wind to a higher standard - I'd rather have two pretty reliable sources whose downtime is uncorrelated.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  > Wind/PV/storage can hit 95% or 99% or 99.9% a lot cheaper than Hinkley can hit 95%. I think the geography of the UK helps with offshore wind getting good capacity factors, but the general averages aren't great, often peaking at ~40%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor As someone who lives in Ontario, Canada, I can see in real-time how wind goes up and down, while nuclear just keeps chugging along: * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data § Supply And nuclear is cheaper (CA$0.101/kWh) than wind ($0.147) or solar ($0.474); see Table 2: * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023... Of course our infrastructure and/or geography may not be as well-suited for wind.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Nuclear is only 10 cents / kWh after the OEB has off-loaded all the costs for building and decommissioning to the federal and provincial governments.

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