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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?

#71

Post by samstave »

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…

My grandfather was a Nuclear Engineer for General Electric his whole life (worked like 60 years at GE - he was one of the designers of Hanford.

He died of cancer, thyroid cancer of exenguination (bleeding out of your mouth)

My grandmother received a fairly large settlement from the class action lawsuit against GE for exposing engineers to radiation for decades without proper safety...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#72

Post by hutzlibu »

jason-phillips wrote: post #19

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 uptak…

"selling this idea to the private-sector energy industry was an uphill battle"

Could you elaborate on the why? I would asume, because of risk. A solar plant, you can more or less just put anywhere, but a nuclear power plant, even a small one, needs state permission, has to meet extensive regulation, etc.

It would need some convincing for me, too, that a nuclear reactor can be just a drop in replacement for coal. I would think unknown risks, hidden costs due to regulations, neverending building, etc.

And are we talking about a battle tested design, or is it new technology? That sounds extra risky.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#73

Post by jandrese »

loeg wrote: post #18
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).

Isn't Hawaii also transitioning a significant fraction of its generation to solar? Diesel can be ramped up and down easily to account for varying production from solar.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#74

Post by zbrozek »

balaji1 wrote: post #44

Might be nitpicking here: Referring to the pie charts under this section[1], I can't help but think images like this are intentionally meant to mislead: [1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-p... I understand author picked it from some other source, Dawson 2017 or whatever. These pie charts are not like for like, when it includes the renewables -- maybe the coal/gas/nuclear fine. So why put t…

What is your objection? The charts are all various fractional contributions to LCOE, which already captures and normalizes for things like plant life. You could argue that the size of the pie should be scaled for the total LCOE, but that doesn't really help with the comparison being made (e.g., the relatively small fractional cost of fuel vs capital for nuclear plants).

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#75

Post by mbostleman »

Doubling the cost consequence of regulations, regulations changing causing in-progress projects to go back and remove and re-do work, negative learning - all of these things are a result of our society not gathering around the mission. If we wanted it, we would fix all these things. But it just doesn't have support. It seems like an incredible tragedy that is at least proportional to that of climate change since from most reasonable projections, nuclear - assuming the technological challenges can be solved - is the quickest way to reduce our impact on climate change. The fact that we insist on suppressing the courage to solve the problems makes me question the integrity of those who run the narratives on climate change policy.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#76

Post by Ericson2314 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s also due to regulatory costs. Regulations now require “citizen voice” for large projects, whether infrastructure or just an apartment building. So NIMBYism is able to slow construction (which translates directly to increased costs), require additional measures or features. And NIMBY lawsuits after regulatory approval is given can further increase costs and schedule, even if the court rules in favor of the proj…

I don't think it's useful to conflate construction code style regulation and NIMBYism.

There can be excess of the former, but ultimately rules-based regulation isn't the worst. NIMBYism and other discretionary review adds more much delays and uncertainty and that is the Achilles heel.

Ultimately we need build out the literal and metaphorical supply chains, i.e. do the same thing over and over and over again. Economies of scale are real, and so are diseconomies of discale, and the latter is the NIMBY's greatest weapon for collective action.

Are Stadtbahns the SMRs of transit?

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#77

Post by belorn »

epistasis wrote: post #35
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.

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.

A month or so back someone posted a report by a financial investing advisor for the energy sector, and they were pretty clear what is and what isn't economical viable right now.

Solar + storage of 1-6 hrs can be made economical viable as long as the storage can have 365 discharge cycles each year, assuming prices get high enough each such cycle. Each unit of storage get a return on investment each day, and each are used fully at the point in time when the market price is at peak.

Under those precise circumstances the economics of storage is cheaper than nuclear. The only other cheaper alternative to nuclear is to use renewables when the weather is optimal and fossil fuel when the weather is not optimal, or just use fossil fuels (through that is just a waste of money and the climate).

Naturally this advisor firm could be wrong and someone here could start the world first economical viable operation that uses wind for renewables and then charge a reverse hydro operation. It would make for a nice news item.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#78

Post by philipkglass »

Robotbeat wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s also due to regulatory costs. Regulations now require “citizen voice” for large projects, whether infrastructure or just an apartment building. So NIMBYism is able to slow construction (which translates directly to increased costs), require additional measures or features. And NIMBY lawsuits after regulatory approval is given can further increase costs and schedule, even if the court rules in favor of the proj…

It’s not just a boogeyman. It’s the real reason. Regulations are responsible for most of the cost of nuclear power.

In a counterfactual world with fewer regulations, I can believe that construction would be cheaper. But regulations don't explain why new projects have drastic cost and schedule overruns. The United States started building new AP1000 reactors in Georgia and South Carolina in 2013 [1] [2]. There were no regulatory changes/increases after 2013. But the projects went drastically over the budget and schedule numbers that they had in 2013.

The South Carolina project was ultimately canceled and the SCANA CEO ended up in federal prison: https://www.powermag.com/former-scana-ceo-will-land-in-priso...

Following the project's demise, an “exhaustive and multi-year joint investigation” was conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Marsh’s sentencing is the result of that investigation.

“Kevin Marsh deceived regulators and customers to financially benefit SCANA,” Susan Ferensic, special agent in charge of the FBI Columbia Field Office, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Marsh’s and other executive’s actions resulted in South Carolinians bearing the financial brunt of the failed Summer Nuclear Station.”

“Due to this fraud, an $11 billion nuclear ghost town, paid for by SCANA investors and customers, now sits vacant in Jenkinsville, S.C.,” DeHart said.

The Georgia project is still in progress.

https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-united-state...

"Georgia nuclear plant’s cost now forecast to top $30 billion"

A nuclear power plant being built in Georgia is now projected to cost its owners more than $30 billion.

A financial report from one of the owners on Friday clearly pushed the cost of Plant Vogtle near Augusta past that milestone, bringing its total cost to $30.34 billion.

...

When approved in 2012, the third and fourth reactors were estimated to cost $14 billion, with the first electricity being generated in 2016. Now the third reactor is set to begin operation in March 2023, and the fourth reactor is set to begin operation in December 2023.

It's reasonable to say that a pacemaker costs more to develop than an MP3 player because medical devices are heavily regulated by the FDA. But it's not reasonable to say that a project to develop a new pacemaker is 100% over budget and 7 years late because of FDA regulations if the FDA regulations didn't change in the mean while. In this case, the regulations didn't change. So earlier estimates were due to fraud or incompetence (either execution-incompetence or planning-incompetence). I tend to blame incompetence -- after all, many megaprojects end up horribly late and over budget, not just nuclear ones -- but in the case of South Carolina's VC Summer there was outright fraud too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_C._Summer_Nuclear_Gener...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#79

Post by jandrese »

Robotbeat wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s also due to regulatory costs. Regulations now require “citizen voice” for large projects, whether infrastructure or just an apartment building. So NIMBYism is able to slow construction (which translates directly to increased costs), require additional measures or features. And NIMBY lawsuits after regulatory approval is given can further increase costs and schedule, even if the court rules in favor of the proj…

Is this due to "citizen voice" or is it just that all of the land is now someone's back yard? A century ago most of the land around cities was forest, plains, or sometimes farm. Building out rail, transmission lines, or pipelines was relatively easy because barely anybody lived near where you were building.

Today there are people scattered all around and they will absolutely complain when you start building something near the property they bought specifically to be away from other people.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#80

Post by Ericson2314 »

yvdriess wrote: post #65
kaiju0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Having talked to a nuclear engineer about this: SMRs are being politically pushed because of their political and financing convenience, more than engineering reasons. Power output scales really well with reactor size, so it makes much more sense to build the one big expensive power plant than a multitude of smaller ones. SMRs do make sense for off-grid or on-site power, but not for grid electricity.

The ideal case is that SMRs are not the end goal, but a way to rebuild the supply chain. As soon as we have SMRs in prod, rather than building more of them, we should attempt to increase the size of deployments with minimal falling back on in-situ construction.

SMRs take the supply chain metaphor a bit too literally: we do need practice but assembling prefabbed parts at a larger scale is fine too. There is a spectrum of options and we just need to avoid "special snowflake boondoggles".

Given the US's fucked NIMBY culture, it well may be that SMRs are the best route despite these inefficiencies. Just don't expect the "solar model" where we just shit out lots of lousy product and that's it.

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