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

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#161

Post by immmmmm » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #150

jacquesm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it disconcerting that a defective critical piece ended up being used anyway, regardless of the economies involved. That might mean you have no reactor, but you can't just go an substitute broken or out of spec parts for good ones.

I mean depends how it's broken, right? Broken could just mean anything from "will blow up momentarily" to "more inefficient than spec, but totally safe"

Carbon migration problems during forging if i recall correctly. So steel is out of specs. How badly will certainly remain secret, like most things in this industry.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#162

Post by Oarch » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

I'm enjoy HN's ongoing obsession with this substack.

Seeing it regularly appear here lets me forget for a moment that my industry (construction) is still in the technological Dark Ages.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#163

Post by w0mbat » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

If you think the construction costs are high, think about the demolition cost when the facility reaches end of life, and is now radioactive.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#164

Post by acidburnNSA » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

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.

Sometimes, in relief missions like after big earthquakes.

More often they use the onboard desalination plants (also nuclear powered) to make lots of fresh water.

e.g. https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/oceana/ne...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#165

Post by daniel-cussen » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

Masochism in part, and secondly the Simpsons blackballing the entire industry. Nobody wanted to become a nuclear engineer after that shitty show. The creators of the Simpsons are nuclear war surrender monkeys.

Context, in the show, the groundskeeper which is a discriminatory stereotype of Scots, says the French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", another discriminatory stereotype, but it's fine according to the bitchvictim media's rules because since they're both white it counts as "poking fun" and not "bigotry". Tucker Max said "cheese-eating surrender monkey!" to a French girl at a bar, game over right there even for a guy with crazy game like him, because it's fucking insulting. Literally calling them monkeys AND submissive cowards? Well if the Simpsons can do it to others, I can do it to the Simpsons. One of my surnames is French, I'm part French, my great-grandfather spoke French and was a Francophile following the Blitzkreig with a map hoping the French could turn the invasion around, he was rooting for them. It's just not fucking funny. The Simpsons is a bigoted show, don't think you can repeat any of those jokes. So this is what I get to reply to the Simpsons, and all those losers: The Simpsons are nuclear armageddon surrender monkeys. Whole bitchvictim media with them.

Going back to the topic of nuclear engineers, with 22 minutes of slander on television on every day specifically against them that's the hottest show on television decade after decade, like only a son of a nuke would become a nuke.

So that's also sabotage, then the public is like a thousand times as sensitive to a nuclear accident than to a coal plant shitting into the air we breathe.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598892

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#166

Post by 7952 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

babypuncher wrote: post #123

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?

Hedging your bets. We know nuclear works. Grid-scale energy storage for renewables still feels far fetched. Maybe it's not. Either way, we should not put all our eggs in one basket.

We shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket. But I don't think rapid growth of the battery industry is far fetched at all. It has already experienced massive growth and is ridiculously mass producable. And we will need batteries anyway for electric cars.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#167

Post by jandrese » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #136

jandrese wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but I'm not sure what the current percentage is or how fast that change is happening.

Solar and Wind have really been exploding in the past few years. I fully expect this hand wringing over nuclear will end up being overtaken by events in the next 30 years or so. The real limitation at the moment is battery technology, there is a lot riding on finding cheap and efficient energy storage.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#168

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

bsedlm wrote: post #25

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…

I think there's a larger point around the general notion of "spread of competency". the competency is not allowed to spread. there's a thick shroud of secrecy around how all this sophisticated technology comes about. This is also why semiconductors are so difficult. Back in the early 20th century the nuclear stuff was secret so the nazis and then the russians would not get it. Now semiconductors are also closely rela…

Link to the topic?

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#169

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

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…

I think this is actually a good thing.

The old designs are dangerous, expensive, and wasteful. The regulatory, economic, and political environment that resulted in their design ultimately resulted in reactors run without proper controls, supervision, or long term safety. The resulting waste was not properly considered from a life cycle perspective.

Disclaimer: I'm not a nuclear expert, but man I loved those LFTR presentations. What really appeals to me about LFTR is the inherent safety, the near-full use of fuel, and the scalability. I understand there are challenges for the materials and containment, but I believe the smaller size of the reactor can lend itself to replacement and manufacturing.

So a "clean slate" with new people, regulations, standards, expectations, computer simulation, and lifecycle planning would do nuclear a huge bonus.

But ultimately it doesn't matter. It won't be price competitive with wind/solar and can't even target a 10-year price point with the wind/solar improvement curves. Same issue the fusion story on the front page faces.

Let's continue active research, but commercialization is a waste of time and money right now. When wind/solar stabilize their cost curves, then nuclear (or fusion) will have something to target commercially. IF they can get there.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#170

Post by zackees » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #147

logifail wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> micro and modular reactors Umm, are these the ones that - relatively speaking - produce significantly more radioactive waste than traditional designs? "The next generation of small nuclear reactors will be big on producing radioactive waste"[0] "Small nuclear reactors produce '35x more waste' than big plants"[1] Sorry for the scepticism, but the nuclear lobby were the ones that brought us the phrase "too cheap to m…

35x of a small problem is not necessarily a big problem. You need to quantify that objection. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed (see Fast Breeder reactors); the concern raised here is usually proliferation risk. Given a binary choice, I'd rather have to deal with some nuclear waste than climate change, and I don't even think that climate change is an existential risk for humanity (just likely to cause large and uneven…

Post like this make me hopeful that rational minds will prevail and we get clean abundant nuclear energy.

It’s becoming clear that the climate alarmism isn't about solutions or even a tax, but forcing us to purchase “carbon credits” from Saudi Arabia and other sovereign wealth funds ranked high in the ESG index.