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Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

constructionphysics.substack.com

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Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#11

Post by jeffbee »

01100011 wrote: post #3

Totally unrelated question but does anyone know if nuclear powered US Navy vessels are able to feed power to the grid while in port? I know it's technically possible, just not sure if anyone has ever implemented such a thing.

A naval reactor produces most of its power in direct steam propulsion and relatively little (~1/3rd) converted to electricity. I think the largest vessels can generate just 125MW which isn't much at all. The only beneficial use of a navy vessel as mobile infrastructure that I can recall is when the USS Carl Vinson was used to produce drinking water for Haiti after their earthquake.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#12

Post by ortusdux »

kaiju0 wrote: post #7
Georgelemental wrote: post #2

TL;DR rising labor costs and regulation

Each build is unique and requires way too much overhead. The new generation of preapproved factory assembled SMR's are the future.

I have high hopes for prefab modular systems. The same design approval covers 1000+ units, most designs fit on a flat-bed for transport, and instillations can scale up as needed.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#13

Post by Ericson2314 »

> but all else being equal (ie: assuming total production cost stays constant), it’s better to have a larger fraction of your electricity costs be variable, so that if demand drops then production cost drops as well.

This is how capitalism gives us scarcity when there is no reason for scarcity. Infrastructure like trains and nuclear that absolutely swamps current demand, and whose costs cannot be adjusted very much (even if one can run fewer trains, remove some fuel rods) is good. But woe unto anyone that floods the market utopia-style under capitalism --- you will just get paid nothing and your investors will not repeat such a project again.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#14

Post by pmyteh »

xroche wrote: post #10

> Because nuclear plants are expensive, and they take a long time to build, financing their construction can also be a significant fraction of their cost, typically around 15-20% of the cost of the plant. For plants that have severe construction delays and/or have high financing costs (such as the Vogtle 3 and 4 plants in Georgia), this can be 50% of the cost or more. This is why nuclear power plants should be state-…

Yes, probably. This can bring its own problems, though. In Britain, for example, the Treasury is extremely reluctant to approve new public capital projects, even at negative real interest rates. Investment is effectively rationed by requiring a benefit/cost ratio of above 2 (at net present value, after making heavy optimism bias adjustments) before it will approve funding. New nuclear won't get close to that on any conventional appraisal, which is one reason why our current nuclear new build is happening on an eye-wateringly expensive private finance arrangement.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#15

Post by lelag »

The article misses another important aspect: loss of nuclear competency.

Between the 60s and 80s, there were many nuclear reactors projects which allowed an industry to develop and get better at it.

But since the 80s, there was comparatively very few new reactors built for over 20-30 years. The workforce that had the skills and knowledge related to actually building nuclear plants had mostly retired and their replacement had only theoretical knowledge and no actual experience. This makes building new reactor much harder than it should be.

The embattled EPR project at Flammanville is an exemple of that: the specialised company that was hired to forge the nuclear vessel were simply unable to build to spec and a defective critical piece was delivered, creating delays and cost increases. In the end, they even had to use it anyway as it was not economically feasible to simply have another one made.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#16

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

colechristensen wrote: post #5
01100011 wrote: post #3

Totally unrelated question but does anyone know if nuclear powered US Navy vessels are able to feed power to the grid while in port? I know it's technically possible, just not sure if anyone has ever implemented such a thing.

The largest nuclear vessel produces up to 160 MW, the smallest single nuclear reactor power plant about 500 MW (sites often have multiples), the largest nuclear reactor in the US is about 4 GW. An average wind turbine produces 2-3 MW.

CVN-78s reactor according to Wikipedia:

> It is estimated that the total thermal power output of the A1B will be around 700 MW

CVN-78 has two of them.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#17

Post by bryanlarsen »

Georgelemental wrote: post #2

TL;DR rising labor costs and regulation

Note that the regulatory costs are only responsible for much of the increases of the 60s and 70s. They're the boogey man, but the increases of the last forty years can't be blamed on them.

It's a general problem: HSR and subway stations have seen similar increases.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#18

Post by loeg »

01100011 wrote: post #3

Totally unrelated question but does anyone know if nuclear powered US Navy vessels are able to feed power to the grid while in port? I know it's technically possible, just not sure if anyone has ever implemented such a thing.

I think they do while in port in Hawaii. Hawaiian electricity is largely diesel (other than nuclear coming from Navy ships).

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#19

Post by jason-phillips »

Last year I did a fair amount of consulting work for the GAIN initiative at Idaho National Lab [0].

They're doing so much good work with micro and modular reactors that can basically be "dropped in" decommissioned coal-burning sites because the infrastructure to tie into the electric grid already exists.

It was expressed to me that selling this idea to the private-sector energy industry was an uphill battle and uptake was very slow to nonexistent.

[0] https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/Home.aspx

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#20

Post by Krasnol »

xroche wrote: post #10

> Because nuclear plants are expensive, and they take a long time to build, financing their construction can also be a significant fraction of their cost, typically around 15-20% of the cost of the plant. For plants that have severe construction delays and/or have high financing costs (such as the Vogtle 3 and 4 plants in Georgia), this can be 50% of the cost or more. This is why nuclear power plants should be state-…

Why should states invest it's taxpayer money into overpriced and slow technology when there are cheaper and fast improving alternatives?
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