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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?

#481

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #424
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2000 people died in the evacuation.

Which mostly means the evacuation was far too aggressive, but even if we pretend they were unavoidable that's basically all the nuclear deaths for multiple decades, which is vastly less harm than fossil fuels.

It is very hard to do tracebacks of cancer to nuclear events. It's very hard to do cancer death tracebacks to industrial spills and pollution. Genetic damage that may span a generation.

Nuclear proponents (I'm a nuclear proponent) that handwave away such dangers are exactly who I'm talking about from the "old guard", and the people that the greens were correct about: the people who need to die off/retire/disappear (by attrition), whose lax view of nuclear safety and who politically killed the LFTR in preference for the solid fuel design that could ALSO produce nuclear weapons. Good riddance.

LFTR has given the blueprint for a next-gen reactor: use all the fuel, inherent meltdown protection via the plug, proliferation reduction. Solid fuel reactors are not safe

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#482

Post by otter-rock »

ncmncm wrote: post #477
otter-rock wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so the safety argument doesn't even matter, so why debate it as a proxy for what you really mean?

The safety argument is one of several good reasons to cancel. They do not contradict, but add.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#483

Post by Krasnol »

trashtester wrote: post #426
Krasnol wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still, only 16% of Germany's total energy consumption comes from renewables: Sure but this has nothing to do with nuclear. Germany heats with gas and oil. We don't even have 5% electrical heating here. > In particular, giving up the ability to smooth out variations in production without the use of fossil fuels will be extremely costly, It's not even close to how costly nuclear is and will continue to be for GENERAT…

Germany, for all it's renewables, let out significantly more greenhouse gases per capita than surrounding countries, such as France. > It's not even close to how costly nuclear is and will continue to be for GENERATIONS. Modern nuclear plants are designed to last for a minimum of 60 years, and can be renewed to last another 40. Modern wind turbines as well as most solar panels have an expected lifetime of around 25 y…

> Germany, for all it's renewables, let out significantly more greenhouse gases per capita than surrounding countries, such as France.

This has also nothing to do with nuclear.

The reason we have so much dirt is in the name of the commission which is responsible for the COMPLETE phaseout of coal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Growth,_Structur...

> Modern nuclear plants are designed to last for a minimum of 60 years, and can be renewed to last another 40. Modern wind turbines as well as most solar panels have an expected lifetime of around 25 years.

What does that have to do with the sentence you've quoted? They don't leave us with radioactive waste, we have no space to put away. "Modern" is also relative in this case since before you have one of those "new" reactors running, renewable tech made several technological jumps and most of "new" is still in development and/or of questionable use/improvement like SMRs: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2111833119

> Germany even pays Denmark to shut down their wind power

Why do you even bother quoting me when you're not answering to this?

> Norway has been on 100% renewable electricity since forever, and unlike Germany, Norway actually uses electricity for heating.

Good for Norway. What do you suppose? Give an electric heater to 95% of all German households? I mean seriously...what is this?

Btw: while Norway runs green, they dig for oil and gas and sell it to others making all the good on the environment bad again.

> Norway did NOT need German help for that.

Nobody said they need it. It's one of the batteries for the rest of the grid. This is how the grid works.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#484

Post by Dylan16807 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #481
Dylan16807 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which mostly means the evacuation was far too aggressive, but even if we pretend they were unavoidable that's basically all the nuclear deaths for multiple decades, which is vastly less harm than fossil fuels.

It is very hard to do tracebacks of cancer to nuclear events. It's very hard to do cancer death tracebacks to industrial spills and pollution. Genetic damage that may span a generation. Nuclear proponents (I'm a nuclear proponent) that handwave away such dangers are exactly who I'm talking about from the "old guard", and the people that the greens were correct about: the people who need to die off/retire/disappear (b…

Well I'm not handwaving danger. I'm saying we should compare it to other kinds of power plant before we call it "insufficient". Maybe I define insufficient differently than you.

> It is very hard to do tracebacks of cancer to nuclear events.

Tracebacks are hard but we can do estimates. When I look those up I see numbers like "130".

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#485

Post by Krasnol »

trashtester wrote: post #425
Krasnol wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is always wind somewhere. But grid capacity is not free, in fact it is quite expensive. No it's not...as I said several times over: IT'S ALREADY WORKING and has been for years... > Also, if this load causes a brownout in Spain, due to improper maintaince, for instance, This is not the US here. We have the most stable grid on the whole planet. Countries do maintain their networks here. > In other words, while…

> This is not the US here. I live in Europe. The grid in Europe is not designed to transport 100% of electricity needs from one edge of the continenent to the other. Most energy produced in Europe is still renewable or nuclear, and it is produced relatively close to where it is consumed, for the most part. > We have been "pumping" massively energy into storage in the alps. The storage capacity of electricity in the a…

> I live in Europe.

So what's the scare? You live in a working grid already. It's the most stable one on this planet already and it's improving constantly. Those improvements are also cheaper than nuclear reactors and make the grid more flexible than a constantly running nuclear reactor. What's your argument?

> The storage capacity of electricity in the alps is tiny compared to total electricity consumption.

That's why we don't rely just on it. Just like we don't rely only on PV or only on wind. That's the great thing about it.

> Nordlink has is getting seriously unpopular in Norway

Do you know what's really unpopular in Norway? Nuclear energy. Just as in Germany.

I also don't know how this is supposed to be a valid argument now.

> Wind and solar is still a tiny percentage (around 10%) of total energy consumption in Europe.

Just because certain parts of Europe are ignorant to new technology doesn't mean that it's not working. It's working in Germany pretty well and has been for years while France is embarrassing themselves with their rotting nuclear one-way.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#486

Post by mandevil »

k8wk1 wrote: post #434
mandevil wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true for the 1970's and 1980's boom of production in France, but is not true at present: the EPR they are building at Flamenville 3 and Hinkley Point C1+C2 are the sum total of those reactors currently under construction, and none are currently operational, so those three are likely to be the total number ever built. It is true that the 34 CPY reactors, and the 20 P4 reactors, were produced in large enough nu…

There are also 2 EPR designs producing electricity in China since 2019, so your sources aren't correct.

Thank you, missed those two in China. Similar to the AP1000, China can build these licensed designs faster than the flagships, missed that.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#487

Post by mandevil »

k8wk1 wrote: post #433
mandevil wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, when it comes to nuclear Europe's (excluding Russia) basically in the same boat as the US. Consulting the current list of nuclear power plants under construction around the world by a pro-nuclear power group here: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu... I see the following as the only ones still under construction in all of Europe (not counting Belarus and Russia): 1) Mochovce 3…

Hinkley point construction started 2017, not 2008. In 2008 even the site wasn't picked yet.

The Hinkley Point story is very complicated, indeed. But I believe you will find that initial work to clear space and create parking for the future construction site started in 2008, then the EDF acquisition shenanigans and British government shenanigans came along and massively delayed the project.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#488

Post by masom »

photochemsyn wrote: post #117
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), secur…

Hydro power has some high drawbacks, including being affected by droughts. They're flooding large swaths of land, destroying ecosystems, are extremely energy intensive while being built, cannot be built anywhere you'd need one, and result in large destruction when they fail.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#489

Post by chinchilla2020 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #371
anamexis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s generally missing from the other energy sources as well.

What remediation costs do solar or wind have?

There are massive mining/smelting/manufacturing costs in metal for solar and wind. Solar panels in particular generate massive waste due to the rare earth metals through mine waste, concentrator tailings, leftover leach solution, solution-extraction-electrowinning waste, slag, transportation fuel, etc. Let's not forget the massive fuel costs involved.

Solar panels may be tiny but they generate dozens of tons of waste material per panel.

There is a good reason all the large mining companies and several of the large oil companies market/lobby their contribution to 'green energy' so zealously. https://www.fcx.com/sustainability/environment#climate

(I used to work in this vertical)

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?

#490

Post by spoonjim »

natmaka wrote: post #391
spoonjim wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

WP's article about this is quite good, and leads to a terse but to the point "Ocean floor disposal" one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...

Most of this seems to indicate minimal environmental effects?
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