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Nuclear Power in France

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Re: Nuclear Power in France

#201

Post by nitrogen »

agumonkey wrote: post #115
nitrogen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or at least the success and role of schools and the media.

And long term emergent structures of society. Not to step too much in conspiracy but an economy first system might naturally steer toward medium level education so that money flows without people thinking too hard or be able to be independent from the usual marketing tricks. It's almost a natural order, smart and cynical will be rewarded by high ranks, while the clueless mass will be spun to fuel the system.

Reminds me of this optimized city in SimCity:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU

https://www.neatorama.com/2010/10/16/magnasanti-the-largest-...

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#202

Post by sudosysgen »

mcguire wrote: post #195
sudosysgen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the reactor cores would have to be replaced every 12-15 years. But if the reactors are mass produced and designed to swap out the cores, it doesn't have to be too expensive.

What happens to the used cores?

They have to be disposed of. That creates waste. This is the same as with any other power generation method that exceeds it's lifespan. 15 years is not that different from 20 years for a wind turbine or 30 years for a solar panel.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#203

Post by PaulHoule »

makomk wrote: post #197
PaulHoule wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amory Lovins had designed a nuclear reactor that would be unaffordable to build it would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) You can make the case that regulation inflates the cost of nuclear power plants, and that's somewhat true, but the deep problem is the cost of the steam turbine and other facilities (e.g. heat exchangers) to accept energy at the low temperatures that the LWR works at. All…

The UK tried building gas cooled reactors that produced more useful and efficient steam temperatures on the output. They worked - in fact, they make up pretty much the entire UK nuclear generation capacity these days - but turned out not to be as practical as boring PWR reactors due to various annoying engineering issues. There are other reactor concepts out there which promise to do better but they're pretty unteste…

They're still running a steam turbine but it is more compact and efficient.

Fourth-generation reactors won't be easy, but the motivation to develop them is strong.

Arguably there is a lot of experience with liquid metal fast reactors, many of the problems like sodium fires and problems with inspection are probably solved. Think

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Flux_Test_Facility

as opposed to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#204

Post by varajelle »

avianlyric wrote: post #160
sudosysgen wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually quite sustainable. The reactor core is not a large cost for a GW over 15 years. The US navy swaps out reactor cores for 100-200 million dollars, and those are in submarines and ships. There is basically no maintenance outside of those. For comparison, a GW of wind capacity is 1.6 billion every 20 years. For solar panels for 1GW of average generation you'll be paying 10 billion dollars or so every 25-30…

I think GP meant environmentally sustainable, rather than fiscally sustainable, you need to do something with the old reactor cores.

> you need to do something with the old reactor cores.

You burry it deep in a geologically stable ground [1]. Was that not counted in the price?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#205

Post by concordDance »

avianlyric wrote: post #160
sudosysgen wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually quite sustainable. The reactor core is not a large cost for a GW over 15 years. The US navy swaps out reactor cores for 100-200 million dollars, and those are in submarines and ships. There is basically no maintenance outside of those. For comparison, a GW of wind capacity is 1.6 billion every 20 years. For solar panels for 1GW of average generation you'll be paying 10 billion dollars or so every 25-30…

I think GP meant environmentally sustainable, rather than fiscally sustainable, you need to do something with the old reactor cores.

That's sustainable long past the point we run out of radioactives. Just how much space do you think buried reactor cores take up and how big do you think the earth's crust is?

You could literally throw it in the deep ocean and it'd still do less damage than a single day of Brazilian deforestation for biofuel production or a month of operation of a coal plant (partially because water is actually quite good at blocking radiation and not becoming radioactive, you can safely swim in a spent fuel rod storage pool).

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#206

Post by concordDance »

_ph_ wrote: post #131
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciously deciding to not replace capacity when the need for replacement is known decades in advance is a targeted policy.

Maybe I have not made that point clear enough in my post: currently they are failing to build replacement plants at a cost at which they could replace all of the existing reactors. Unless they can come up with an entirely new design which considerably cuts cost compared to what is considered a "current design" right now, there will be a reduction in capacity.

Nuclear being staggeringly overregulated is the reason for the high costs. If we put the same price on lives lost to car accidents as we do to lives lost in nuclear accidents (which some basic back of envelope calculations using old reactor construction costs and lives lost in nuclear accidents reveals to be well over a billion dollars per life) none of us would drive.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#207

Post by makomk »

misiti3780 wrote: post #80
corban1 wrote: post #69

Nuclear is clean, it is safe but it is not cheap. It's safe and clean because of it's moderately priced. I stand by nuclear because it's cleanness and safeness which can't be compared to anything else. What will we generate electricity with in non-windy cloudy days? Coal? LNG? ESS? Note that all of those options are more dangerous, more expensive and more dirty than nuclear.

Not sure about Europe, but nuclear seems to be expensive in the US because construction costs are high because of overcautious regulation[1]. It was considerably cheaper in the 50/60s here, and it seems like mostly a policy issue [1] https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop

The reason nuclear regulation in the US is stricter these days is because companies used to do things like routing all their supposedly-redundant control and monitoring wiring through the same shared duct, stuffing it full of flammable foam, and then testing that for air leaks using a bare candle whilst the plant is operating. This is not a hypothetical problem - it was apparently standard practice in the era you're talking about and nearly caused a major catastrophe, and the fire regulations that stop practices like this are cited as a major cost making it hard to build nuclear power plants by companies in the business.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#208

Post by mcguire »

lazide wrote: post #56
forty wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where have you seen nuclear is the cheapest solution for electrity production? Nuclear has some benefits, but price does seem to be one of them (and actually one of the reasons for preferring renewable)

On a ‘basic capacity price’ type basis, nuclear is dirt cheap. When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects (like having no economies of scale at all despite the clear opportunity for them) then yes, it is very expensive. shrug Most nuclear projects outside of China basically turned into exercises in endless planning churn and endless delays for no rational reason to appease anti-progress politi…

"When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects..."

Like "where are you going to put the waste?" and "I don't want my property values to go to zero when an accident occurs"? :-)

If one were suitably cynical, one might suggest China does not have that kind of problem.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#209

Post by michael1999 »

worrycue wrote: post #119
_ph_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France isn't reducing the capacity as a targetted policy but out of necessity. They have 58 nuclear power plants, most of them quite old (before 80ies). To maintain the current level, they would have to be replaced not too far in the future, but currently only 1 or 2 new reactors are under construction and both late and way over budget. So there currently is no route in maintaining the current capacity. Consequently…

> currently only 1 or 2 new reactors are under construction and both late and way over budget. So in a few decades France has forgotten how to build reactors on time and in an affordable way?

Booms generate an educated cohort. A stalled boom freezes this now-oversized cohort in place, and leaves no job openings for the next generation. Then, a generation later, retirement can leave an industry incapable of past glories.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#210

Post by lazide »

PaulHoule wrote: post #172
lazide wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a ‘basic capacity price’ type basis, nuclear is dirt cheap. When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects (like having no economies of scale at all despite the clear opportunity for them) then yes, it is very expensive. shrug Most nuclear projects outside of China basically turned into exercises in endless planning churn and endless delays for no rational reason to appease anti-progress politi…

If Amory Lovins had designed a nuclear reactor that would be unaffordable to build it would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) You can make the case that regulation inflates the cost of nuclear power plants, and that's somewhat true, but the deep problem is the cost of the steam turbine and other facilities (e.g. heat exchangers) to accept energy at the low temperatures that the LWR works at. All…

Eh, the basic economics of a PWR or even BWR are quite sound and you don’t need fancy tech to change that. Even with very expensive uranium and very expensive turbines, it doesn’t change that (depending on the number of orders of magnitude we’re talking about of course). And if you’re making 10x-100x of the things in a few years, it actually gets cheaper for both, since you can build a series of turbines, or reopen a sizable mine and just do it, instead of what we do now.

And now, instead of it taking a couple years to build with predictable timelines and approvals, you end up in decades long and impossible to predict legal fights that drag out construction; ruin any sort of economies of scale; and put everyone into a ‘meh’ state when it comes to actually getting anything done on a timeline. I know folks in Nuclear Engineering for some of the plants that literally have spent a decade plus generating paperwork and going in circles. Very, very, very well paid folks I might add.

A steam turbine doesn’t cost $5 billion dollars and 5 years per plant like these things do.

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