New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light • Hacker News Board

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#71

Post by 1337shadow » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #67

1337shadow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long and how much will take to build a next generation nuclear power plant like with a small molten salt reactor ? Will it be like, twice cheaper and twice faster to build ? If so, why is it not happening ?

Inertia of the industry combined with risk aversion. Nuclear regulation is not really setup for small modular reactors and nuclear power still has a bad name. The nuclear fanboys still push the big reactors. I think renewable fans like me favor next gen rectors because we are okay with not building reactors right away. We can build renewables until they are developed. Nuclear fans OTOH hate renewables and just want t…

I see, so we can quickly build cheap & safe small molten salt reactors but we actually don't build because of risk aversion and industry inertia so that's really a shame (I thought the tech just wasn't ready yet).

Another problem is nuclear fanboys: why exactly do they hate renewables so much ?

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#72

Post by manfredo » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:46 AM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #69

manfredo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that nuclear is the only known geographically independent way of generating carbon free energy that isn't subject to intermittency. The redundancy isn't an issue with nuclear, it's an issue of the notion that we need nuclear and renewables. Just cut out the renewables, and only use nuclear. Using nuclear to fill in the duck curve makes renewables redundant, thus the aversion to nuclear of many proponents…

Renewables are already widely deployed and payed for. It is nuts to build nuclear to replace fully functional wind turbines and solar cells. Nuclear fans just have no economic sense. It is all about nuclear no matter the cost.

Maybe some promising new storage technology will prevail, but solutions that are 5-10 years of development away from being viable have a habit of taking a lot more than 5-10 years to become viable. Until then nuclear presents the only proven way of decarbonizing an energy sector to a great extent that works in any environment.

It's true that nuclear doesn't make economic sense relative to running a gas plant and using solar when you can. You can get a greater immediate carbon reduction by spending the cost if a nuclear plant on supplementing fossil fuels with nuclear. But that'll only go so far. Once you outstrip demand during peak generation hours, you're effectively getting less energy for the same capacity. It doesn't provide a path to decarbonization without storing large amounts if energy - much larger than what we'll be able to store for decades at least.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#73

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #30

roenxi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The others are already over budget and behind schedule The reason why is important though. Is it because of: 1) Political issues, where the government has set up incentives for the builder to lie? 2) Social issues, where environmentalists attack the project to drive up costs? It seems unbelievable to me that nuclear plant planners are unable to plan because ... dunno, maybe they hear nuclear and lose the ability to…

Construction projects are inherently unpredictable, because it's building something large, bespoke, and in constantly varying conditions. Nuclear plants are very complex, so that obviously raises the level of unpredictability. Every manufactured object has an insanely long and convoluted dependency chain, where each link is subject to disappearance due to factors completely out of your control. Especially objects tha…

> Construction projects are inherently unpredictable

And yet, renewable projects typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#74

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #47

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the largest CO2 polluting country is unwilling to join any such agreements. This is true now and it was true 30 years ago.

So levy punitive tariffs against it, and anyone else who does not sign onto a carbon tax.

I don’t think the Europe Union really wants a trade war with the US. Basically, Germany is the weak spot in this. They are an export driven economy and a US embargo on Germany would be devastating.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#75

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #40

sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main advantage that EDF has that allows it to work well isn't that effective out of France. They still do good work, but they act much more like a private company than an SoE, which is why it's so much more successful in France.

Well, EDF have not been so successful with their most recent project in France, Flamanville 3. Construction started in 2007, with estimated completion in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion. As of 2020, the plant is still not complete and the cost has spiralled to €19.1 billion. It is now tentatively planned to go online at the end of 2022.

Comparatively to other nuclear companies and in aggregate, EDF has the best safety record, the cheapest energy when subsidies are taken out, and is solidly profitable. That one or two constructions went overbudget does not matter if the result is still head and shoulders ahead of the fray.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#76

Post by jodrellblank » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:04 AM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #62

belorn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless how expensive it get, it won't burn tons of fossil fuels. Government should just set the conditions for new power and heating infrastructure. No fossil fuels. Zero carbon. A minimum and peak capacity based on current and projected demands. Private companies can bid, but they can't change the conditions. If a private company can more cheaply and faster build massive amount of battery and use exclusively win…

Cost matters. If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price, why go nuclear? We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better developed. If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage. And if you absolutely want to spend on nuclear power, spend it in SMRs and molten salt reactors. ThorCon is probably not that far from a working solution if…

> If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage.

Wikipedia says "The potential for further practical and viable hydroelectricity power stations in the UK is estimated to be in the region of 146 to 248 MW for England and Wales,[4] and up to 2,593 MW for Scotland.[5] However, by the nature of the remote and rugged geographic locations of some of these potential sites, in national parks or other areas of outstanding natural beauty, it is likely that environmental concerns would mean that many of them would be deemed unsuitable, or could not be developed to their full theoretical potential." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United...

Pumped-hydro storage doesn't need existing water, but the national grid averages 30GW and peaks at 40GW ( http://grid.iamkate.com/ ) are there enough places to build "a ton of pumped hydro" for that kind of size which are suitable for the above criteria as well?

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#77

Post by gautamcgoel » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

erentz wrote: post #48

Here’s an article discussing the costs more: “The Hinkley Point C case: is nuclear energy expensive?” https://medium.com/generation-atomic/the-hinkley-point-c-cas...

Great read, thanks do much for the link! It's really refreshing to see the actual math. Main takeaway: nuclear can be cheap if financed properly, but incredibly expensive otherwise. Also, nuclear plants eventually become highly valuable cash cows, once the huge initial investment is recouped.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#78

Post by jodrellblank » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #8

steeve wrote: post #2

Good news for the climate and the environment!

There is no evidence nuclear waste can be disposed of safely in the medium or long term. Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Its not the will of the voting public. This is a defeat for the environment and democracy.

Yet coal power plants pump radioactive, climate changing, material into the air we breathe by the chimney full, and gas vehicles do it by the cylinder full at the rate of ~1 litre/second outside homes and schools, and nobody gives a shit about "disposing of that safely in the medium or long term".

You can dispose of nuclear waste "safely" by having a (single) Chernobyl style meltdown, continent-wide fallout, and long-term deadzone and still come out ahead of all the coal power plants.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#79

Post by AlchemistCamp » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #74

vkou wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So levy punitive tariffs against it, and anyone else who does not sign onto a carbon tax.

I don’t think the Europe Union really wants a trade war with the US. Basically, Germany is the weak spot in this. They are an export driven economy and a US embargo on Germany would be devastating.

The US isn't the largest CO2 emitter, though it used to be.

China's emissions are approximately double the US's and growing.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#80

Post by jodrellblank » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

Arubis wrote: post #39

roenxi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Only technocrats know how to build an operate an electricity grid, it isn't commonly held knowledge. The voting public are not equipped to vote on how to create a reliable, performant and affordable energy grid. It isn't an issue that should be decided by the public's will. The public can overrule anyone on anything, but on technical issues it is usually wiser t…

At the risk of being too reductive, it strikes me that it’s most appropriate to let the public determine the strategy: the broad strokes and goals they want (clean, safe, low/no carbon energy sources), but to defer to actual trained experts on the tactics: the generation mix and transmission tech. This isn’t to say there should be no supervision or accountability; more that the elites are called so for a reason (a be…

America and the UK haven't done well at deferring to actual trained experts with COVID-19 tactics. I have no idea what you might say the public's broad-strokes and goals for COVID19 were.

It seems quite reasonable to say that if "the public" want unclean, unsafe, high-carbon energy sources and deny that climate change is a problem, they should be unable to have any input in the same way that someone who wants a tall building that is unsafe can't have one, and someone who wants a car on the road without passing any safety tests can't have one, and someone who wants to provide unsafe medical treatments is not allowed to.