3 ms·
Project risk and financing is a big problem in nuclear for sure. Decommissioning nuclear is paid for by a decommissioning trust fund that is paid into by law b
by acidburnNSA 1y ago
Project risk and financing is a big problem in nuclear for sure.
Decommissioning nuclear is paid for by a decommissioning trust fund that is paid into by law by rate payers during operation of the plant.
The recipe is sort of understood though: choose a good enough tried-and-true reactor and serialize production of it. This is how France built 50 reactors in 15 years. It's how China is now building several dozen.
- tfourb 1y agoChina is only building enough nuclear capacity to roughly keep nuclear‘s share of overall electricity production stable at around 15%, if I remember correctly. And that’s probably mostly to keep the technology alive for military and strategic reasons. China’s actual energy demands will be met by Wind and Solar.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoIt is at 4.4% and shrinking from its peak of 4.8% in 2021. https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
- Zigurd 1y agoOne can point to examples of successful reactor construction projects. But despite those examples, they are no more repeatable than cold fusion experiments. People keep trying, and failing. Often these supposedly successful examples fall apart when you examine decommissioning costs, which in France look to be about four times the amount budgeted.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoWith negative learning by doing in the French case. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... Compared to China’s grid size they are barely investing in nuclear power. Likely landing around 3% nuclear power in their electricity mix given the average of 4-5 construction starts per year since 2020.