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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?

#31

Post by orthecreedence »

sofixa wrote: post #24
Krasnol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because you can start a project with the existing, proven and expensive tech today . Grid-scale storage is purely theoretical today (bar pumped-up hydro, which is infeasible in most locations). There's lots of hope, and money should be invested in the various alternatives, absolutely. But nobody can say when and if that tech would be ready.

Storage is not not purely theoretical!! In fact there are .

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#32

Post by ImHereToVote »

colinmhayes wrote: post #28
lelag wrote: post #15

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 replace…

This is undoubtedly true, but south korea has now been building nuclear plants for decades, and their costs haven't really dropped at all.

According to the article they have

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#33

Post by xyzzyz »

Krasnol wrote: post #20
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?

There are no cheaper and fast improving alternatives to provide plentiful electricity at 9pm every single day.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#34

Post by skybrian »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #13

> 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 (…

Another way to interpret that sentence is “it’s better not to spend too much on construction, and it can be better to spend on fuel if it means spending less on construction.”

Building things you don’t need is waste of labor and resources, regardless of the economic system you use or who paid for it. This should be accounted for somehow.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#35

Post by epistasis »

sofixa wrote: post #24
Krasnol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because you can start a project with the existing, proven and expensive tech today . Grid-scale storage is purely theoretical today (bar pumped-up hydro, which is infeasible in most locations). There's lots of hope, and money should be invested in the various alternatives, absolutely. But nobody can say when and if that tech would be ready.

This is inaccurate, GW scale batteries could be deployed today, but because storage is so scalable it's often a better idea to build multiple smaller batteries that help alleviate grid congestion.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#36

Post by pydry »

sofixa wrote: post #24
Krasnol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because you can start a project with the existing, proven and expensive tech today . Grid-scale storage is purely theoretical today (bar pumped-up hydro, which is infeasible in most locations). There's lots of hope, and money should be invested in the various alternatives, absolutely. But nobody can say when and if that tech would be ready.

>Grid-scale storage is purely theoretical today bar pumped-up hydro, which is infeasible in most locations

Viable locations arent in short supply at all:

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potenti...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#37

Post by NaNDude »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #17
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.

may be the increases of the last forty years have'nt been studied as thoses of the 60s to 70s, but regulatory costs are still a reality, the french EPR for exemple got a 20billion increase in cost during the construction for changes in security standards.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#38

Post by sofixa »

renewiltord wrote: post #30
sofixa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can start a project with the existing, proven and expensive tech today . Grid-scale storage is purely theoretical today (bar pumped-up hydro, which is infeasible in most locations). There's lots of hope, and money should be invested in the various alternatives, absolutely. But nobody can say when and if that tech would be ready.

According to this commenter, we can't build with the proven and expensive tech today because we don't have it any more https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31682876

Depends who.

For EPR, we're almost over the hump, with the latest projects in Finland and France coming online and becoming fully operational in the near future.

Rosatom has continued pumping out reactors at a decent rate.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#39

Post by ImHereToVote »

pmyteh wrote: post #14
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 c…

This is because of "not corruption"

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#40

Post by danuker »

sfe22 wrote: post #23
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-…

Zero percent or negative just means people involuntary pay by inflation. There is not free lunch (someone had to work to make it)

Negative interest rates mean more than your units of currency going down in purchasing power.

It also means them going down in number (a bank CHARGES you for the costs incurred holding your money).

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