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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?

#311

Post by Dylan16807 »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #251
avianlyric wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then why are you making so many arguments about how we must find ways to make it cheaper? They don’t appear to be making those arguments at all. Just stating that Nuclear regulations sets safety standards substantially higher than safety stands for other power sources. It quite reasonable to include a question about “how safe is safe enough” when talking about trade offs. It’s easy to change safety standards, and t…

> Nuclear regulations sets safety standards substantially higher than safety stands for other power sources. Ok, but this surely only is an argument that other sources should be regulated harsher (and fossil fuels absolutely should), not that we must make nuclear less safe.

What makes you think that?

With fossil fuels I'd say we need to worry about taxing emissions more than we worry about safety. But sure, let's make them safer.

Why do you think nuclear isn't too safe? Don't say it's impossible to be too safe. It's very possible. Imagine if speed limits were 15mph everywhere for an easy example.

We can build plants that are much safer than any previous ones; why is that not good enough? The regulations shouldn't be "make the whole thing out of the black box material, okay good luck".

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#312

Post by ethbr0 »

paulmd wrote: post #173
Arrath wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...waste disposal are so expensive. Until there are higher costs for CO2 emissions... Perhaps we should also examine the requirements and costs associated with storing waste from coal-fired power plants. Oft overlooked in favor of the fuel rod boogeyman. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/coal-... If we treated such waste with the care and security it deserved, the cost equation may balance out…

Yes. The problem with nuclear is basically twofold: first, the approval and regulatory process is deliberately cumbersome and in obvious need of reform. Treating every plant as a one-off design rather than standardizing has enormously inflated costs. And generally much higher scrutiny requirements for new designs have strangled the ability to roll out better/safer designs. It's very similar to what happens in the FAA…

The article hints at the core driver of costs: time

Decrease time-to-completion, and you decrease a whole host of costs. And the regulations driving that time explosion are within Congress's ability to modify.

(1) Grandfather any currently builing plan into regulations as of the year of project initiation, regardless of how they change after the fact

(2) Waive environmental impact studies for nuclear (or other no-carbon) plants. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

The real problem is that nuclear has no constituency. Environmentalists hate it because they can't do math and aren't pragmatic (let's be honest); wealthy folks hate it because they don't care how much power costs and NIMBY.

So who exists to fight for it?

The only political hope I see in the US would be a single-issue group comprised of practical environmentalists + industrialists. The former should like it because it saves the planet. The latter should like it because it allows decarbonization without inflating energy costs.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#313

Post by pfdietz »

trashtester wrote: post #282
pfdietz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's grossly excessive. This website lets you look at optimization vs. actual historical weather data and reaches a much lower cost. BTW, you use both batteries AND storage; their combination can be cheaper than either alone. You also store the hydrogen underground rather than above ground. https://model.energy/

I agree that a combination of batteries and hydrogen would be a bit cheaper, but generally I would trust the MIT study over the model above, that states directly that it is a toy model. It's fun to play with, though, so definitely upvoted. Do you have an alternative peer reviewed study to support the conclusions?

(Edited to actually look at the link)

Looking at that first link, it appears to cost/kWh is the cost for just the seasonal power that is being produced from hydrogen. It is not the average cost/kWh over all the energy being consumed off the grid.

Comparing this to nuclear is to compare apples and oranges. Nuclear supplies baseload, not additional seasonal power. If you tried to use nuclear to supply seasonal power the cost would be extreme. If you use nuclear to supply baseload, it is competing not just with hydrogen but also with much lower cost energy sent directly from renewables to the grid, and from batteries to the grid.

Of course the fraction of the output from the hydrogen fueled turbines will be expensive. But what we get from that toy model is the average cost of power, of which seasonally stored power is just a small part. In that toy model, nuclear is "Dispatchable 2", which you can enable, and which comes out to about 10 euro/kWh (EPR assumptions, perhaps optimistic considering Flamanville 3.)

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#314

Post by krupan »

ncmncm wrote: post #290
megaman821 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the crux of the argument for investing more money into solar/wind/storage vs nuclear. The solar and wind stuff is already cheap enough, so its storage vs nuclear. Will nuclear get cheaper faster than grid-scale batteries? There is only so much capital that can be invested, and potential advancements in batteries are looking a lot more promising than advancements in nuclear. I think the lion's share of mone…

Batteries are the most expensive storage. They cost per kWh stored, while others cost mainly only per W inserted or extracted. Only a minuscule fraction of utility scale storage will ever be batteries, so even mentioning batteries only details discussion.

What will it be then? Flywheels?

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#315

Post by pfdietz »

freemint wrote: post #269
belorn wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a massive war and shortage of natural gas in Europe so if there exist cheap electrolyzers + wind power combinations that can solve that issue today then people should rush to invest before next winter where prices are predicted to sky rock. I recall that the study did say that existing natural gas power plants could cheaply and easily be converted to run on hydrogen. Hydrogen prices has also gone up a lot si…

Hydrogen needs an complete overhaul to the pipeline system. Burning natural gas for energy is a fraction of it's use. More important are heating (where it can't be transported too), steel making and chemistry (CoViD vaccine ingredients are made using natural gas by BASF).

Not to supply grid leveling it doesn't. For that, the hydrogen is produced, stored, and consumed in a small range of places.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#316

Post by pyrale »

ncmncm wrote: post #301
mch82 wrote: post #253

The cost of nuclear energy seems seriously understated. Nuclear waste storage costs the US $6B per year and we still don’t have a long-term storage plan. We’ll incur this cost for hundreds or thousands of years. https://earth.stanford.edu/news/steep-costs-nuclear-waste-us... There’s also a cost to secure the nuclear infrastructure. https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/nuclear-generation... Can anyone find a cost…

Waste management is by far the smallest of all the problems with nukes. Overwhelmingly the biggest problem is wholly legal corruption, as cost and schedule are allowed to balloon without limit. For everyone involved, the gravy train stops when a plant is delivered, which no one actually involved wants ever to happen. (If it must end anyway, there is some incentive to actually deliver, as happened at Olkiluoto, but no…

> No one has offered any plausible suggestion for how to contain corruption costs for nuke construction

Honestly, I had assumed this was how the US worked in any industry. The tech industry (most recently crypto) has certainly spent lavishly on politics in recent years, either to escape accountability or to get special status.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#317

Post by ncmncm »

pyrale wrote: post #316
ncmncm wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waste management is by far the smallest of all the problems with nukes. Overwhelmingly the biggest problem is wholly legal corruption, as cost and schedule are allowed to balloon without limit. For everyone involved, the gravy train stops when a plant is delivered, which no one actually involved wants ever to happen. (If it must end anyway, there is some incentive to actually deliver, as happened at Olkiluoto, but no…

> No one has offered any plausible suggestion for how to contain corruption costs for nuke construction Honestly, I had assumed this was how the US worked in any industry. The tech industry (most recently crypto) has certainly spent lavishly on politics in recent years, either to escape accountability or to get special status.

It is particularly a problem in high capex projects with opaque cost accounting, particularly nukes, urban tunnels, weapons procurement, and crewed spaceflight.

Solar and wind projects seem thus far relatively immune.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#318

Post by theptip »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #249
theptip wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology might make a good cost/benefit trade-off, if we fixed the regulatory framework but not otherwise. Or it might already make a good trade-off in the current regulatory environment. I don't see the technology and the regulatory framework as being tightly-coupled here, though they do obviously affect each other. My point is that we need to look at both of these factors, rather than considering the regulato…

> I don't see the technology and the regulatory framework as being tightly-coupled here You're saying the safety standards regulation is not couple to the technology being used? Then what is it regulating if it's not the technology?

Holding the technology constant, you can change the safety requirements.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#319

Post by baud147258 »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #137
logifail wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 b…

Use Case: You pay more to get a reliable service for the same price regardless of weather conditions.

well, nuclear power plants can be impacted by weather conditions: specifically those which use rivers to provide the water for their cooling need, rivers whose discharge can be impacted by high heat, bringing it to a level below what's required for the nuclear plant. I don't think it's not a common occurrence, but it can happen

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#320

Post by Dylan16807 »

logifail wrote: post #234
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How about they just prepay another country for ten thousand years of storage multiplied by 100 square meters? I don't see why it has to be local.
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