3 ms·

Umm, what's his point? Have you seen how many barriers there are to nuclear? One not running today has almost nothing to do with the feasibility of the technolo

by chermi 1y ago

Umm, what's his point? Have you seen how many barriers there are to nuclear? One not running today has almost nothing to do with the feasibility of the technology.

ViewTrick1002 1y ago
We have been trying to build ”SMR” since the 1950s, and even built a whole bunch. All have been economical failures. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors-2650272535 https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... Nuclear power went large due to various scaling laws and fixed costs. We now know that new built nuclear is horrifyingly expensive as per recent western example.
- chermi 1y ago
  That's self-fulfilling. Solar was expensive. Then they built a lot of them, they got cheaper (+ better tech obviously). We know basically nothing about the learning curve of nuclear because we haven't met the conditions for the learning curve to apply, except maybe in China, where it seems to hold. I just don't understand why everyone is so confident that nuclear power is the one thing that doesn't get cheaper with better technology and scale. Everything that is built is old tech, and, except in China and south Korea, built so rarely that the workforce is basically brand new every time. Of course they're expensive(in the West), they're one-off large engineering projects. All evidence points toward China, south Korea being able to do it cheaper and faster, so we should look there when there's sufficient (trustworthiness and quantity) data to test scaling laws. All signs point to cheaper and faster, but even then, the numbers of builds are relatively small, so you'd expect scaling gains to be modest. One of the main points of SMRs is to harness the effects of large numbers. Why not at least try? Why are we so confident it will fail before even trying with modern designs?
  - tiberiusg 1y ago
    seems like a similar narrative to EV's back in the 90's - battery tech is not there, the economics don't work, no charging infra etc. Cut to now and that narrative has flipped. We might be in the same adoption curve cycle with nuclear.
    - Herring 1y ago
      Even if that's the case, we don't have 30 years to figure it out. I'd keep a little money for continued research, but otherwise go all-in on solar.
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      Look at the cost per GW for the Bruce and TVA ”SMR”. They are in line or worse than Vogtle, and they haven’t even started building. Nuclear power has been experiencing negative learning by doing for half a century. It is a known entity. All in all an extremely complex coal power plant. New built regular coal power plants are not competitive in 2025 either. Now make it even more complex.
      - chermi 1y ago
        You're judging a new technology on the cost of a damn pilot? Again, no to the negative learning. The learning curve theory has requisite conditions. They aren't met, except maybe in China and south Korea, where it seems so far to apply, if modestly.
        ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        How can a 70 year old mature technology be a ”pilot”? Lovely that it takes an enormous corruption scandal for nuclear power to ”work”. South Korea’s latest plants have only taken 10 years with correspondingly increased costs. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-greed-and-corruption-blew-up-south-koreas-nuclear-industry/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-greed...
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Look at what China actually builds. Nuclear power is declining in their electricity mix. > One of the main points of SMRs is to harness the effects of large numbers. How many trillions in subsidies should we waste to try scale when the competition we also funded decades ago already delivers? We already gave a try building nuclear power again 20 years and at the same time invested in the nascent renewable industry. The nuclear investment evidently did not pan out.
  - mercutio2 1y ago
    Thermal power cycle infrastructure has a pretty high lower bound on price even if you’re ignoring the cost of containing a fission reaction. It’s not that there wouldn’t be learning curves, it’s that we’ve already seen the learning curve for the easiest part of the stack, and it’s not competitive. I’m all in favor of continuing to throw VC money at small nuclear, to be clear. The regulatory situation everywhere outside of Texas is so bad that there will be niches where “power plant arrives on a semi, no external interconnect required” is a great business proposition. But if we had a sane regulatory environment for building transmission and interconnect, nuclear wouldn’t get enough custom to ever climb the learning curve.
- tw04 1y ago
  Building one every 50 years is horribly expensive. Because you have to relearn all the mistakes that become tribal knowledge with the construction hang. Building 100 in a decade starts becoming very economically feasible as per recent Chinese examples. And as we saw with the US ramp of military vehicles in WWII.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    And even in China nuclear power is not competitive. As per recent construction starts they will land on 2-3% of the electricity mix. Wholly insignificant. We should we hand out trillions in subsidies to the nuclear industry when the alternative we also invested in: renewables and storage. Already deliver what we need to decarbonize society?
- preisschild 1y ago
  The US unfortunately has almost built no standardized / modular reactors. Everyone was custom. That is why they were so expansive to build. SNUPPS and the AP-1000 are the only "standardized" nuclear power plant designs built in the US and there were only a small number of them built. Not enough to benefit from economies of scale benefits through standardization and modularization.
  - fsh 1y ago
    According to the list on Wikipedia, the existing reactors in the US are just a few different models [1]. Looks quite standardized to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
    - preisschild 1y ago
      Just look at the capacity numbers, they are different from each other. Even WH 4/3-loops are wildly different from each other.

by chermi 1y ago

Umm, what's his point? Have you seen how many barriers there are to nuclear? One not running today has almost nothing to do with the feasibility of the technology.

ViewTrick1002 1y ago

We have been trying to build ”SMR” since the 1950s, and even built a whole bunch. All have been economical failures. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors-2650272535 https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... Nuclear power went large due to various scaling laws and fixed costs. We now know that new built nuclear is horrifyingly expensive as per recent western example.

chermi 1y ago
That's self-fulfilling. Solar was expensive. Then they built a lot of them, they got cheaper (+ better tech obviously). We know basically nothing about the learning curve of nuclear because we haven't met the conditions for the learning curve to apply, except maybe in China, where it seems to hold. I just don't understand why everyone is so confident that nuclear power is the one thing that doesn't get cheaper with better technology and scale. Everything that is built is old tech, and, except in China and south Korea, built so rarely that the workforce is basically brand new every time. Of course they're expensive(in the West), they're one-off large engineering projects. All evidence points toward China, south Korea being able to do it cheaper and faster, so we should look there when there's sufficient (trustworthiness and quantity) data to test scaling laws. All signs point to cheaper and faster, but even then, the numbers of builds are relatively small, so you'd expect scaling gains to be modest. One of the main points of SMRs is to harness the effects of large numbers. Why not at least try? Why are we so confident it will fail before even trying with modern designs?
- tiberiusg 1y ago
  seems like a similar narrative to EV's back in the 90's - battery tech is not there, the economics don't work, no charging infra etc. Cut to now and that narrative has flipped. We might be in the same adoption curve cycle with nuclear.
  - Herring 1y ago
    Even if that's the case, we don't have 30 years to figure it out. I'd keep a little money for continued research, but otherwise go all-in on solar.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Look at the cost per GW for the Bruce and TVA ”SMR”. They are in line or worse than Vogtle, and they haven’t even started building. Nuclear power has been experiencing negative learning by doing for half a century. It is a known entity. All in all an extremely complex coal power plant. New built regular coal power plants are not competitive in 2025 either. Now make it even more complex.
    - chermi 1y ago
      You're judging a new technology on the cost of a damn pilot? Again, no to the negative learning. The learning curve theory has requisite conditions. They aren't met, except maybe in China and south Korea, where it seems so far to apply, if modestly.
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        How can a 70 year old mature technology be a ”pilot”? Lovely that it takes an enormous corruption scandal for nuclear power to ”work”. South Korea’s latest plants have only taken 10 years with correspondingly increased costs. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-greed-and-corruption-blew-up-south-koreas-nuclear-industry/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-greed...
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  Look at what China actually builds. Nuclear power is declining in their electricity mix. > One of the main points of SMRs is to harness the effects of large numbers. How many trillions in subsidies should we waste to try scale when the competition we also funded decades ago already delivers? We already gave a try building nuclear power again 20 years and at the same time invested in the nascent renewable industry. The nuclear investment evidently did not pan out.
- mercutio2 1y ago
  Thermal power cycle infrastructure has a pretty high lower bound on price even if you’re ignoring the cost of containing a fission reaction. It’s not that there wouldn’t be learning curves, it’s that we’ve already seen the learning curve for the easiest part of the stack, and it’s not competitive. I’m all in favor of continuing to throw VC money at small nuclear, to be clear. The regulatory situation everywhere outside of Texas is so bad that there will be niches where “power plant arrives on a semi, no external interconnect required” is a great business proposition. But if we had a sane regulatory environment for building transmission and interconnect, nuclear wouldn’t get enough custom to ever climb the learning curve.
tw04 1y ago
Building one every 50 years is horribly expensive. Because you have to relearn all the mistakes that become tribal knowledge with the construction hang. Building 100 in a decade starts becoming very economically feasible as per recent Chinese examples. And as we saw with the US ramp of military vehicles in WWII.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  And even in China nuclear power is not competitive. As per recent construction starts they will land on 2-3% of the electricity mix. Wholly insignificant. We should we hand out trillions in subsidies to the nuclear industry when the alternative we also invested in: renewables and storage. Already deliver what we need to decarbonize society?
preisschild 1y ago
The US unfortunately has almost built no standardized / modular reactors. Everyone was custom. That is why they were so expansive to build. SNUPPS and the AP-1000 are the only "standardized" nuclear power plant designs built in the US and there were only a small number of them built. Not enough to benefit from economies of scale benefits through standardization and modularization.
- fsh 1y ago
  According to the list on Wikipedia, the existing reactors in the US are just a few different models [1]. Looks quite standardized to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
  - preisschild 1y ago
    Just look at the capacity numbers, they are different from each other. Even WH 4/3-loops are wildly different from each other.