Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#111

Post by epistasis » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #77

epistasis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

Making such broad statements about economical versus not economical is difficult, because batteries serve so many purposes and have so many revenue streams that deployment is highly locational, depending on the specifics of the grid and where and when demand causes congestion.

There's also little incentive to install storage when solar and wind penetration is low, but as higher percentages of the grid is powered by renewables, then storage quickly becomes far more attractive.

Currently, there are 14.5GW of batteries in development across the US, and this is just a tiny nascent industry. Even as a small industry, this is many times the power capacity of nuclear currently in development.

This biggest challenge with batteries right now is low supply, and competing with demand from EV production, which provides higher margins:

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/how-ba...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#112

Post by danans » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #61

alex_young wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The only country where the costs of nuclear plant construction seem to have steadily decreased is South Korea: > The fact that South Korea is the only country to exhibit this trend has led some experts to speculate that the cost data (which comes directly from the utility and hasn’t been independently audited) has been manipulated and we shouldn’t draw conclusions from it.

In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea's. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... See figure 12 for a quick overview. And from the introduction: "In contrast to the rapid cost escalation that characterized nuclear construction in the United States, we find evidence of much milder cost escalation in many countries, including absolute cost declines in some countries…

> In absolute terms, Japan and India have costs similar to South Korea

That countries like Japan and Korea have similar absolute costs as India which has a 4-5x lower PPP adjusted GDP per capita suggests that the price for labor for nuclear power plant construction is globally set (relatively few qualified engineers who can demand a high price), or India uses a lot more labor, or a combination of both.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#113

Post by samstave » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #64

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-…

> This is why nuclear power plants should be state-sponsored projects. States typically have loans at 0% rate, or even negative interests. Not anymore with inflation at around 8% in many western countries. And even so, construction and operation still remain expensive. France's EDL is basically bankrupt if it were not for the state backstopping them. However you want to slice it, nuclear power is not economically via…

Inflation is WAY fn higher than 8%.

Try more like 30%

Go to costco's meat section, walmarts juice section, any fn gas station.

Fleecing is whats happening.

EDIT:

Cool, clearly you arent tracking prices like I do.

Costco's meat section is up ~22%$

Walmarts Juices are up ~30%

We all know what gas prices are. $7 a gallon in Napa.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#114

Post by stingraycharles » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

ak217 wrote: post #93

> Nuclear is sometimes praised for having lower fuel costs, 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 not obviously true. I could make an argument that base load generation capacity (nuclear and hydro in particular) should be state-owned o…

Yeah this statement makes me think that OP had very little actual knowledge about energy pricing.

If there’s ever a complicated market of supply and demand it’s energy. Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable is absolutely desired, will help simplify operations a lot, make supply more predictable, and as a result deliver more stable prices.

It’s not as if the population is suddenly getting cheaper windmills if there’s too much supply; if the energy supplier is losing money due to oversupply, they will need to get their money back another way, so it’s always the consumer that pays anyway.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#115

Post by bgilroy26 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

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 (…

Cow's milk in the United States seems to be an exception to this

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#116

Post by logifail » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

ak217 wrote: post #93

> Nuclear is sometimes praised for having lower fuel costs, 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 not obviously true. I could make an argument that base load generation capacity (nuclear and hydro in particular) should be state-owned o…

> base load generation capacity

What's the consensus on the meaning of 'base load generation capacity'?

There are those who'd say it's an archaic term often used to defend power sources that can't ramp up and down to meet demand, and nuclear would be top of that list. If - for instance - there are times when it's windy and sunny, why should consumers have to pay more than the market rate to nuclear generators, just because nuclear is inflexible?

More broadly: what's the actual use case for 'base load generation capacity' over the coming decades?

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#117

Post by photochemsyn » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

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…

Construction costs are only part of the picture and utility operators are well aware that they need to look at lifecycle costs. This includes everything from costs of fuel rods (look at the historically volatile uranium market), availability of large volumes of cooling water (see more frequent droughts), maintenance costs (maintenance being a major factor in the retirement of California's nuclear power plants), security costs, the cost of storing fuel rods onsite for decades, and finally, decommissioning costs (as reactors themselves become contaminated with in-situ activation products, i.e. radioactive cobalt/iron/carbon/nickel isotopes).

It's basically a huge long-term liability that just doesn't exist with solar/wind/storage, hydropower, or geothermal.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#118

Post by samstave » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #98

this_user wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why nuclear power plants should be state-sponsored projects. States typically have loans at 0% rate, or even negative interests. Not anymore with inflation at around 8% in many western countries. And even so, construction and operation still remain expensive. France's EDL is basically bankrupt if it were not for the state backstopping them. However you want to slice it, nuclear power is not economically via…

> So why waste more money on an obsolete technology It is not obsolete. At all. You can argue that some reactor designs should not be used and I would agree. But fission is the only answer we currently have for baseline power that doesn't involve burning things. It will become obsolete if we can ever make fusion work. We should be deploying more reactors. There are small reactors (shipping container-sized) that could…

I have long thought there should be a global nuclear consortium and have that organization build and run and manage and secure all the nuclear power plants in the world.

Earth/Humanity needs electricity FOREVER. Its bizarre that we cant come together over this expressly universal need. This and water.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#119

Post by logifail » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #114

ak217 wrote: post #93

> Nuclear is sometimes praised for having lower fuel costs, 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 not obviously true. I could make an argument that base load generation capacity (nuclear and hydro in particular) should be state-owned o…

Yeah this statement makes me think that OP had very little actual knowledge about energy pricing. If there’s ever a complicated market of supply and demand it’s energy. Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable is absolutely desired, will help simplify operations a lot, make supply more predictable, and as a result deliver more stable prices. It’s not as if the population is suddenly getting cheape…

> Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable

Nuclear might be stable, but "controllable"?

On the days when it's windy and sunny in your part of the planet, try telling your local nuclear plants they're not required.

There's simply no reason to guarantee nuclear generators a fixed electricity price decades in advance, like the UK did with Hinkley Point.[0]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#120

Post by clairity » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #95

jandrese wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything this seems to support the position that the only way to reduce costs is to increase volume. A classic economies of scale example. Instead the experts want to disregard the data for vague reasons.

South Korea, Japan, and India all have similar costs which suggests South Korea isn’t benefiting significantly from continuous construction. Economies of scale generally exist, but it’s not magic. A large fraction of construction costs for nuclear power plants is very similar to other structures. A high pressure steam pipe is a high pressure steam pipe and people are constantly building structures using them.

also, quantity is the (primary) independent variable in economies of scale, and at quantities of dozens for nuclear plants, you can't get much economies, as opposed to when quantities are in the many thousands/millions.