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The French are wholly unable to build new nuclear power. Flamanville 3 is 7x over budget and 12 years late on a 5 year construction program. The EPR2 program

The French are wholly unable to build new nuclear power. Flamanville 3 is 7x over budget and 12 years late on a 5 year construction program. The EPR2 program is in absolute shambles. Currently they can’t even agree on how to fund the absolutely insanely bonkers subsidies. Now targeting investment decision in H2 2026. And the French government just fell and was reformed because they are underwater in debt and have a spending problem which they can’t agree on how to fix. A massive handout to the dead end nuclear industry sounds like the perfect solution!

mpweiher 1y ago
FV3 was a shambles. For a number of fairly well-understood reasons: 1. It's a FOAK design. 2. France stopped building reactors, so expertise was sparse 3. The EPR is too complex, partly because it was designed for German safety standards, which in turn were specifically designed to make nuclear reactors economically unviable (they did not succeed with this). Those regulations are also prescriptive instead of requirements-based, so they don't allow simpler+safer passive cooling like the AP-1000s. It's silliness layered on top of silliness. 4. It was built as a single unit, instead of a series of overlapping builds of the same reactor design. This was because until March 2023, expanding French nuclear capacity was forbidden by law. So they couldn't legally build in a way that is efficient and effective. The EPR2 project addresses this in a number of ways: 1. The EPR2 is dramatically simplified relative to the EPR. 2. The law was rescinded in March 2023, so they will be building six of them initially, in batches of 2, with overlap between all the units. 8 more are planned for later. 3. They are making much more realistic assumptions at the start I am not sure how you can claim that the EPR2 program is "a shambles" when they haven't begun building in earnest yet and are explicitly addressing most if not all the issues with FV3. Seems a tad premature. Of course nuclear is one of the things that is financing the French state and industry, with EDF returning massive profits to its owner (the state) and the ARENH program subsidizing industry.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  Which is of course why all recent western proejcts have equal outcomes to FV3. And the ones recently started, like the Darlington SMR also have near equal costs before they have even started building. I love the blind belief. Just another aboslutely bonkers handout of tax money and it will be solved! Which is why the EPR2 project is getting more delayed and more costly by every update released. Existing nuclear power might be cost neutral. The problem is building new.
  - mpweiher 1y ago
    > Which is of course why all recent western proejcts have equal outcomes to FV3. Yes, because we stopped building. Once we start building again, those problems go away by themselves. And no, the handout of tax money you complain about is to intermittent renewables, not to nuclear. Exactly the reverse of your claims. Just look at the EDF financial reports. Nuclear produces profits that are returned to their owner, despite having to finance ARENH. Oh, of course EDF does receive state subsidies. For their intermittent renewables projects. Ba-da-dumm-tss. Same in Germany: renewables are subsidized in production with around €20 billion per year just for the EEG, never mind the feed-in priority they get that lets them shunt the massive problems of their intermittency onto the other suppliers. That's probably worth more. Oh, and the preferential loan conditions and reduced regulatory burden etc. Nuclear power in Germany never got a single cent for production. And had to account for all the sorts of costs others get to externalize, such as waste. So once again: exactly the opposite of your claims. The problem is not building new. The problem is building the first new. For evidence of this, just look to China: they also built FOAK AP-1000 (Vogtle) and EPR (FV3, HPC). And lo-and-behold: their FOAK versions of these also took around 10 years to build, whereas China typically builds in 5, so twice as long. In absolute terms they were a little faster, because they actually have industrial experience with nuclear (currently building 20+ reactors, lots more planned), the thing that needs to be rebuilt in Europe and the US. Nowadays, they are building their NOAK AP-1000s in 5 years, for $3.5 bn. They didn't go for more EPR, as the AP-1000 is a better design. The EPR also hasn't won any of the recent tenders for nuclear reactors, for example in Poland (AP-1000) and the Czech Republic (South Korean APR-1400) So to repeat: the problems with FOAK builds are well-known, as are the ones with building up nuclear expertise in a country. These go away by themselves once you build a number plants, preferable of the same design. The problems with the EPR design go away once you stop building EPRs. Now these are actual facts. Whereas all you've come up with is empty slogans and emotional fantasies.

mpweiher 1y ago

FV3 was a shambles. For a number of fairly well-understood reasons: 1. It's a FOAK design. 2. France stopped building reactors, so expertise was sparse 3. The EPR is too complex, partly because it was designed for German safety standards, which in turn were specifically designed to make nuclear reactors economically unviable (they did not succeed with this). Those regulations are also prescriptive instead of requirements-based, so they don't allow simpler+safer passive cooling like the AP-1000s. It's silliness layered on top of silliness. 4. It was built as a single unit, instead of a series of overlapping builds of the same reactor design. This was because until March 2023, expanding French nuclear capacity was forbidden by law. So they couldn't legally build in a way that is efficient and effective. The EPR2 project addresses this in a number of ways: 1. The EPR2 is dramatically simplified relative to the EPR. 2. The law was rescinded in March 2023, so they will be building six of them initially, in batches of 2, with overlap between all the units. 8 more are planned for later. 3. They are making much more realistic assumptions at the start I am not sure how you can claim that the EPR2 program is "a shambles" when they haven't begun building in earnest yet and are explicitly addressing most if not all the issues with FV3. Seems a tad premature. Of course nuclear is one of the things that is financing the French state and industry, with EDF returning massive profits to its owner (the state) and the ARENH program subsidizing industry.

ViewTrick1002 1y ago
Which is of course why all recent western proejcts have equal outcomes to FV3. And the ones recently started, like the Darlington SMR also have near equal costs before they have even started building. I love the blind belief. Just another aboslutely bonkers handout of tax money and it will be solved! Which is why the EPR2 project is getting more delayed and more costly by every update released. Existing nuclear power might be cost neutral. The problem is building new.
- mpweiher 1y ago
  > Which is of course why all recent western proejcts have equal outcomes to FV3. Yes, because we stopped building. Once we start building again, those problems go away by themselves. And no, the handout of tax money you complain about is to intermittent renewables, not to nuclear. Exactly the reverse of your claims. Just look at the EDF financial reports. Nuclear produces profits that are returned to their owner, despite having to finance ARENH. Oh, of course EDF does receive state subsidies. For their intermittent renewables projects. Ba-da-dumm-tss. Same in Germany: renewables are subsidized in production with around €20 billion per year just for the EEG, never mind the feed-in priority they get that lets them shunt the massive problems of their intermittency onto the other suppliers. That's probably worth more. Oh, and the preferential loan conditions and reduced regulatory burden etc. Nuclear power in Germany never got a single cent for production. And had to account for all the sorts of costs others get to externalize, such as waste. So once again: exactly the opposite of your claims. The problem is not building new. The problem is building the first new. For evidence of this, just look to China: they also built FOAK AP-1000 (Vogtle) and EPR (FV3, HPC). And lo-and-behold: their FOAK versions of these also took around 10 years to build, whereas China typically builds in 5, so twice as long. In absolute terms they were a little faster, because they actually have industrial experience with nuclear (currently building 20+ reactors, lots more planned), the thing that needs to be rebuilt in Europe and the US. Nowadays, they are building their NOAK AP-1000s in 5 years, for $3.5 bn. They didn't go for more EPR, as the AP-1000 is a better design. The EPR also hasn't won any of the recent tenders for nuclear reactors, for example in Poland (AP-1000) and the Czech Republic (South Korean APR-1400) So to repeat: the problems with FOAK builds are well-known, as are the ones with building up nuclear expertise in a country. These go away by themselves once you build a number plants, preferable of the same design. The problems with the EPR design go away once you stop building EPRs. Now these are actual facts. Whereas all you've come up with is empty slogans and emotional fantasies.