Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#241

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:19 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #216

adrianN wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know it's not terribly difficult to model how much storage you'll need. It has a couple of variables, like how well connected your grid is, or how well you can shape demand, but then it's just looking at past weather data and deciding how low you want the probability for blackouts to be. Here for example is a toy implementation: https://model.energy/ From what I've heard the amount of storage is not very…

Demand response is the biggest unpredictable factor, I think, but demand is also unpredictable. Power plants are commonly depreciated over 30 or even 40 years. Electricity consumption in the US doubled during the 01960s, and it doubled in PRC during the 02010s. If the transport sector in the US went all-electric, that would double electrical consumption again even without increasing energy use. How can you predict wh…

Specifically, aluminum might replace steel because steel is being moved to an electrically reduced metal, with electricity separating oxygen from the oxide (indirectly perhaps, using electrolytic hydrogen). But aluminum is already electrically reduced. The cost advantage of using cheaper coke to make iron goes away.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#242

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:31 AM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #54

acidburnNSA wrote: post #7

I wrote a similar take here on the topic: https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html

Thoughts on LFTR? The presentation that made the rounds many years ago made it seem like it was a solved problem (1965!). That made me rethink the value of nuclear and I'm curious if it's legit.

It doesn't solve the problems that are actually holding back nuclear.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#243

Post by leetnewb » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:36 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #137

Whenever we talk about nuclear power on HN, people are split in two groups: those who'd love to see nuclear power succeeding, and those who are against it and who support solar and wind. I am pro both nuclear and renewables. Solar and wind have been on an absolute tear lately. At least in the US (where I live) new solar and wind construction has been growing at a breathtaking pace during the last decade. Take a look…

Concentrated/thermal solar seems to be flying under the radar. Plenty of room for efficiency and cost improvement. Most of the work is concurrently beneficial to electric production and industrial use. SETO targets $0.05/kWh including 12+ hours of storage by 2030. Plus a pretty safe supply chain.

This article is a good summary: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/09/30/us-energy-dept-still-ho...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#244

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:38 AM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #238

jillesvangurp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro whatever is cheapest and fastest. Which just isn't nuclear. For every GW of nuclear coming online, there are hundreds of wind and solar GW coming online. An order of magnitude more power in an order of magnitude less time. And things are getting cheaper and faster still. Fifteen years from now that will be a lot cheaper and faster. Any plan that does not take that into account is not a great plan. And my prob…

My state is building 2 new reactors and they will be the first to be built in the US in 30 years. Despite Westinghouse going bankrupt and a utility company in South Carolina deciding they don’t want to be a part of it, construction continues. Unit 3 will hopefully be fueled this year and start making power next year. Unit 4 will be a few years. You can’t produce power at night with solar and the wind is not always bl…

Vogtle 3/4 are coming in very expensive. Much more CO2 emission would have been avoided by spending that money to build PV and wind.

Vogtle 3/4 also were greenlighted back in an environment when it wasn't clear PV would get so cheap so quickly. When it became clear how cheap renewables would become, it was obvious that initial decision was bad. The other nuclear build in the US, V. C. Summer, reached the point where they had spent the initial estimate but found the cost had doubled. At that point, it was as if they were asked to make the initial decision again, but now against much cheaper wind and solar. The reluctant conclusion was that continuing made no economic sense. It made no economic sense at Vogtle either, but politicians forced it to continue (the execs in SC were revenge prosecuted for stopping the gravy train.)

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#245

Post by Gud » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:39 AM UTC

In the end, no one is arguing that nuclear power in the West is not expensive.

As the first part of this article series notes, South Korea does not seem to have such extensive costs. Instead of looking into why South Korea can build nuclear power plants at reasonable costs, it hand waves it away implying that the South Koreans are faking the numbers.

South Korean companies also built the Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates, which is hugely successful.

https://www.enec.gov.ae/news/latest-news/start-up-of-unit-3-...

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#246

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:43 AM UTC

towaway15463 wrote: post #93

epistasis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have exact numbers for any of these questions. However, we know that regardless of the inputs in materials or land, the ultimate dollar cost, all in, is cheaper than nuclear. Take the levelized cost of solar for the MWh coinciding with daylight hours, and the levelized cost of storage during the other hours, and nuclear is blown out of the water: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...…

If small commercial solar operations are in fact cheap and have a high return then why am I not seeing startup solar power generation companies everywhere? Surely it would be a hot industry to get into if you can put it anywhere and make a profit?

Replacing existing operating power plants is tougher than outcompeting other options for new power plants. Demand for grid energy in the US has been flat for more than a decade.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#247

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:46 AM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #189

epistasis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside the wisdom of such massive defense spending, the question is what is the alternate good that could perform the job? If we spend $12B on a 1GW reactor, we have far far better alternatives. A 1GW nuclear reactor has a 90% capacity factor of undispatchable, hard to throttle electricity. At today's prices, thay $12B could instead buy 6GW of solar at 20% capacity factor, and 24GWh of batteries. This combined…

I don't think this black and white thinking is really useful. There are inhabited places in the world where solar and wind face real challenges to practicality as the sole source of energy . I would be shocked if we're capable of building an amount of storage that will get the city I live in through the winter, for example. Certainly not for cheaper than a natural gas plant, which is the real competition. Frankly, wh…

Does your city burn natural gas in the winter? That natural gas is not coming directly from wells, typically; it is stored in underground caverns and pipelines. Hydrogen can be stored just the same way. Power-to-X (where X can be hydrogen or other e-fuels) allows renewables to scale to 100% of the energy needed by society at affordable costs.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#248

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:53 AM UTC

psd1 wrote: post #228

dale_glass wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think not really. It depends on why you think subsidizing is a good thing. My personal take is that we should subsidize tech to take it from an early stage to a production stage as soon as possible. We need better power sources yesterday, not next century. So we can't sit around waiting for some sort of Elon Musk to get really passionate and dump heaps of cash into it. But the assumption there is that once the tech…

I agree with your reasoning, but on this tiny rock we call Albion I'm not convinced that renewables will ever be viable for base load. I'm concerned about the tonnage requirement of strategic minerals for battery storage. Supplies for EV batteries are currently choked; we need to scale far beyond that for grid storage. Pumped hydro at the required scale will be a feat of engineering comparable to nuclear engineering.…

There are many different battery technologies being pursued. Some use uncommon materials, but others are just using elements available in essentially unlimited amounts. There are also means of storing energy in other forms. For example, storage of electrical energy as heat energy in sand could have a round trip efficiency of 54% at a quite reasonable cost.

https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20D... (now being commercialized by Babcock & Wilcox.)

The big question of storage is not if it's possible, but which of the many options will come out on top.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#249

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 11:54 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #70

ok_dad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only solves part of the problem, the civilian reactors are still too expensive to build. Nuclear is great, I went through the Naval Nuclear Power Program several decades ago myself, but it's not financially viable . Let me say that again to those engineers who weren't listening: Nuclear (fission) power is not, and will never be, financially viable for civilian powerplants. I'll eat a roll of toilet paper covered…

It is more viable than any other form of energy. You need to count the externalized costs of fossil fuel power plants. The cost of climate change has already exceeded the cost of building many nuclear plants, and that cost will continue to compound at an accelerating rate. One nuc plant costs less than twitter, and twitter is useless. So as a society we have more than enough resources, just not the will. Let it burn.

This is old thinking that considers nuclear as the only option to replacing fossil fuels. But this is now a broken world view, and you need to stop making this bad argument.

Re: Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy

#250

Post by MaKn » Sat, Oct 01, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

anton96 wrote: post #120

oliwary wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fact is that we did go years without building any, leading to nuclear power plants being more expensive. It is the path we chose (rightly or wrongly) and today solar and wind is cheaper in the western world. Even if continuing to invest in nuclear in the 1970s was the right choice, it may no longer be the case today that we have those. (see Path Dependence, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence ) In m…

>> today solar and wind is cheaper in the western world. I’m afraid this is only true for the US, let’s not forget almost all of Europe is as north as Canada or north US. In order to compare the cost we cannot just compare the price to install a certain capacity. You must also factor in how much extra capacity you need to build. When we look at the Germany[1], on the best month, their solar produce half of the instal…

From where do you geht the 600 billion figure? I only know the 500 billion figure from an INSM study from 2016 but that was an estimste for 2025 (doubtful that it still holds up) and also include things like transport infrastrukture etc. Nuclear is by far the most expensive technology and keeps only getting more expensive. They are also not insurable and the waste problem is not solved. Appart from that they are also basically a big target.