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.
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Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
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Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't import a lot of LNG from Russia. Gas coming from Russia comes through the pipes, not LNG. However, we don't even use gas a lot in Finland (it accounts 3% of the total energy production). The electricity prices are through the roof for other reasons (and have been for almost a year now) and are not related to Russia at all.
Care to elaborate?
Finnish market is tied to other Nordics that are tied to central Europe. So it is cascading effect. Main culprit for Nordics really is poor levels of hydro reservoirs. And high prices in Central Europe leading to prices also increasing here.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#23I'm pro-nuclear, but having been following this for a long time and it's not exactly a model that's leading the way.
Especially as I'm in the UK, and we decided to build a copy of it (Hinckley Point) even after all the flaws become known.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#24What 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.
The anti-nuclear crowd being successful might just be an alternate spin on the failure of the nuclear industry.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#25Quoted 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,…
We are continually reassured by proponents that today's designs are invulnerable
Not invulnerable, but the expected harm is far less than fossil fuels under any reasonable assumptions.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#26What 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?
The benefit is that it’s likely quite cheap.
Can you really not think of a downside?
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#27What I find incredible is: Once this fully ramps up, this one power plant is expected to satisfy 14% of the entire country's electricity needs. 7 of these could power an entire country, 24/7.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-...
I'm betting they don't get approved.
Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market
#29What 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.
Something like this. The project started in 2000, construction began in 2005 and should have been completed in 2010. Original cost was 3 billion euro but landed on over 10 billion euro.
It is the first nuclear reactor in Europe for 15 years so not much working experience or available sub contractors.
Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that.
If nuclear energy should be considered, much more must be built more continuously.