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Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

reuters.com

11–20 of 632 posts

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#12
post #6
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

Yep. I think the only chance for embracing more nuclear would be to have smaller modular reactors that can be built on an assembly line. And while we're dreaming, moving to Thorium as the fuel.

[deleted]

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#13
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

What do you think would be the cost of depending on Russia for energy?

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#14
post #8

Quoted post unavailable.

It's a BWR, the worst case failure mode looks something like Fukishima. Certainly a mess, but "set on fire" makes me think you're imagining another Chernobyl. BWRs don't catch fire like that. If something went very wrong, the reactor and containment buildings might pop and make a big mess, but it's not as though there's a thousand tons of graphite there to catch fire. It's not an RBMK.

Edit: Actually it's a PWR, the other two reactors at this plant are BWRs. Still, similar worst-case scenarios.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#15
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

What do you think would be the cost of depending on Russia for energy?

[deleted]

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#16
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

With the success of anti-nuclear rhetoric, we became pretty incompetent at building these things. It's just like the space program.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#17
post #8

Quoted post unavailable.

The possibility seems remote right now and I dislike the inflammatory framing, but I think this touches on one of fundamental drawbacks of nuclear power: it is hard to engineer plants to guard against catastrophe because there's a lot of energy stored in an inherently dangerous form.

Hydroelectric power is often similarly vulnerable: you can engineer the dam to hold, but when something outside of tolerances appears, the downstream consequences are severe. Compare with solar or wind, where the energy source is not concentrated and so plant machinery is comparatively inert.

We are continually reassured by proponents that today's designs are invulnerable, but both history and the fundamentals of energy storage bespeak the limitations of such assurances.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#18
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

What do you think would be the cost of depending on Russia for energy?

Yup. Energy independence is a cost that’s not factored in. (Then again, solar/wind could serve both factors well)

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#19
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

That isn't something you typically see from Reuters.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#20
post #6
post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

Yep. I think the only chance for embracing more nuclear would be to have smaller modular reactors that can be built on an assembly line. And while we're dreaming, moving to Thorium as the fuel.

It’s not too distant a dream, the Rolls Royce small modular reactor designs have just been submitted for approval:

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/rolls-royce-submits-...

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