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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?

#231

Post by jacquesm »

otter-rock wrote: post #213
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.

Out-of-spec doesn't mean it can't work. It just means you have to redo the design using what's effectively a different part than you originally planned on.

Yes, but the idea here was to construct a nuclear power plant, not to build a large pot for boiling soup in. You can't take a critical component like that, spec it and then suddenly pretend the spec never mattered in the first place, then you have to admit that you're just winging it. Changing the spec of the reactor vessel essentially translates into a complete redesign of the reactor itself unless you are willing to compromise on other aspects, such as safety, longevity and so on.

We're not talking about a bracket here. Or an O-ring. When was the last time something as stupid as an O-ring decided the fate of... oh, never mind.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#232

Post by JodieBenitez »

spoonjim wrote: post #227
photochemsyn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), secur…

Can’t you just dump radioactive uranium into the bottom of the ocean? Can’t imagine it would do much damage with all of the water around it.

There's life down there.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#233

Post by trashtester »

derriz wrote: post #172
outworlder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The electricity from small modular reactors is far more expensive than that from large reactors - about twice as expensive by some estimates[1]. They also produce more waste per MWh generated. The industry has been pushing in the opposite direction with larger reactors like the EPR[2] to reduce costs. When measured by LCOE, a MWh from a new conventionally sized nuclear plant is 4 to 7 times as expensive as a MWh from…

Solar is great in deserts, where the sun always shines and were the main use of electricity is air conditioning during the hottest parts of the day.

Solar is near-useless in colder areas, where you want to use the power for heating in the winter.

If you include the storage + grid expansion needed to compensate for the intermittent nature of most renewables (especially if you don't want to rely on fossil fuels when the wind is not blowing), the LCOE of many of them will be many times higher than just the production cost.

Meanwhile, Korea claims to be able to construct Nuclear capacity at prices down to $0.03/kwh with their APR1400 reactors:

https://www.kns.org/files/pre_paper/34/15A-435%EC%9D%B4%EA%B...

That's at least an order of magnitude lower than the cost of renewables when constant output is required.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#234

Post by logifail »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #228
logifail wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and yet one of the comments from that thread stated: > The correct answer is that there is no way to make fission cost-competitive with the near-term price of renewables + storage, or even with imported synthetic fuel produced with renewables, waste or no waste. Thus, the whole issue is moot. No such SMRs will be built except where coerced funding carefully excludes true cost from the process (as indeed happened on b…

There are countries where no combination of renewables + storage is possible. Places with little sunlight and little wind. What do they do?

Q: Do those countries already have long term nuclear waste storage facilities?

There are countries that have been spectacularly failing to provide their own such facilities for decades.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#235

Post by bsedlm »

selimthegrim wrote: post #168
bsedlm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31648981

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#237

Post by iancmceachern »

dqpb wrote: post #221
photochemsyn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), secur…

> the cost of storing fuel rods onsite for decades This environmental remediation cost is generally missing in comparisons with all other energy sources.

And mining too

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#238

Post by iancmceachern »

spoonjim wrote: post #227
photochemsyn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), secur…

Can’t you just dump radioactive uranium into the bottom of the ocean? Can’t imagine it would do much damage with all of the water around it.

No

https://theecologist.org/2009/mar/01/somalia-used-toxic-dump...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#239

Post by mandevil »

krylon wrote: post #181
epistasis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recent US nuclear construction projects have been plagued with similar incompetence, such as trying to build plans that were unconstructable, and then having to get regulatory approval for the changes. I would like to see comparisons to other large construction projects too. The US is really really bad at large construction projects, but European construction seems a lot better.

> European construction seems a lot better Unless the situation in the US is really, really REALLY horrible, I doubt that. I don't remember where, but one country is in the process of building a nuclear power plant, that is AFAIK unfinished, but already took way more time and money than originally planned. Doesn't even have to be nuclear - ask the Internet about Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie or Stuttgart's train station.…

An excellent (English language) podcast about Berlin's fiasco of an airport, BER: https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/ (29 years from planning to completion, 14 years from construction start to opening, 9 years late, budget from 1 billion Euro to almost 6).

One of the points they made in the podcast was similar to TFA's: changes in construction are really expensive and blow things out in costs. A new mayor came in and demanded major changes once construction was underway in Berlin. And then, when people said "this will cause problems" his response was basically "we're Germany, we are the best at planning, building and constructing, of course we can handle this with no problems"...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#240

Post by Gwypaas »

trashtester wrote: post #233
derriz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electricity from small modular reactors is far more expensive than that from large reactors - about twice as expensive by some estimates[1]. They also produce more waste per MWh generated. The industry has been pushing in the opposite direction with larger reactors like the EPR[2] to reduce costs. When measured by LCOE, a MWh from a new conventionally sized nuclear plant is 4 to 7 times as expensive as a MWh from…

Solar is great in deserts, where the sun always shines and were the main use of electricity is air conditioning during the hottest parts of the day. Solar is near-useless in colder areas, where you want to use the power for heating in the winter. If you include the storage + grid expansion needed to compensate for the intermittent nature of most renewables (especially if you don't want to rely on fossil fuels when th…

Awesome then that on-shore wind is even cheaper than solar, and exists at night. Then for some more, still less than 1/3 to 1/4 of nuclear you get off-shore wind with higher capacity factors.
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