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First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

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Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#71

Post by weaksauce »

chris222 wrote: post #41
glimshe wrote: post #21

One project in 30 years doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Nuclear is the only hope we have to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind. Solar and Wind should be used whenever possible, but they are not 100% of our solution mix, even if they are the majority. If we want to mitigate the impact of climate change, we need to invest in decreasing Nuclear costs and building many more plants in the US.

I’m not so sure with overprovisioning, batteries and controllable load. Also pumped hydro and other gravity batteries. We barely have any storage on the grid right now.

> Also pumped hydro and other gravity batteries

pumped hydro is not a winner. the locations that could be used are few and far between and require massive amounts of water and wreak ecological nightmare on a wide area.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#72

Post by coldpie »

KerrAvon wrote: post #63
glimshe wrote: post #21

One project in 30 years doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Nuclear is the only hope we have to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind. Solar and Wind should be used whenever possible, but they are not 100% of our solution mix, even if they are the majority. If we want to mitigate the impact of climate change, we need to invest in decreasing Nuclear costs and building many more plants in the US.

Counterpoint just because someone has to go against the pro-nuclear orthodoxy here: economy of scale won't fix nuclear power. You will never get the cost (or risk) down far enough with existing technology, and none of the advanced technologies have panned out so far. And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough.

> And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough.

I wish this were true, but I haven't seen convincing evidence that it is. Up here in Minnesota, we heat our homes with natural gas. Once that's converted to electric, that's a _lot_ of energy to generate and store, and it has to be absolutely reliable for six straight months or you're talking mass death. Nuclear seems like a perfect fit for this scenario. I think it's a poor choice to take it off the table.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#73

Post by pfdietz »

chroma wrote: post #50

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established in 1975. Since then, no plant license that was initially submitted to the NRC has started operations. Plant Vogtle was approved by the Atomic Energy Commission (the predecessor to the NRC). Their license was grandfathered in. Building this reactor required a new reactor license (not plant license). Shortly after the reactor design was approved and construction started…

The NRC was established just about when the first nuclear buildout collapsed under the weight of its own foolishness. Massive cost overruns did nuclear no favors whatsoever, clearly inadequate safety (especially on those first generation BWRs; hello Fukushima), and (most devastatingly) the deregulation of the US electricity grid, with PURPA (in 1978) and later steps opening grids to non-utility providers. Nuclear projects that would make sense for a monopoly utility (hey, let's boost the capital spending to increase our regulated earnings) no longer made any sense in a competitive market.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#74

Post by Slava_Propanei »

KerrAvon wrote: post #63
glimshe wrote: post #21

One project in 30 years doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Nuclear is the only hope we have to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind. Solar and Wind should be used whenever possible, but they are not 100% of our solution mix, even if they are the majority. If we want to mitigate the impact of climate change, we need to invest in decreasing Nuclear costs and building many more plants in the US.

Counterpoint just because someone has to go against the pro-nuclear orthodoxy here: economy of scale won't fix nuclear power. You will never get the cost (or risk) down far enough with existing technology, and none of the advanced technologies have panned out so far. And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough.

[dead]

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#75

Post by sidewndr46 »

epistasis wrote: post #69

This project is what killed nuclear in the US. Not regulations, not the NRC, just plain old incompetence, bad planning, bad EPC, bad design. The AP1000 was supposed to be a "modular" design, where most of the difficult welding could be done off site and delivered complete, with paperwork. And failure in this modularity is what caused the project to be such a flop, and essentially kill all new large nuclear in the US…

In regards to the story about the weld length, that is the process working as intended. As a constructor you don't just decide that something can be a different dimension. And as a engineer you don't just stand "right there" saying "That's no problem". That is how people get killed.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#76

Post by Retric »

merpnderp wrote: post #11
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

The good news is that after it is paid for, it will cost about $20-$25/MWh. The bad news is that at least for the few decades it will cost $75, which is about the same as solar+battery LCOE today.

Those numbers are wildly optimistic, these overruns mean the plant is going to be repaying construction costs over it’s full lifespan.

I don’t know where you messed up but if you’re running the numbers include the full cost not just the overrun, interest rates, increasing operating costs during loan repayment, capacity factor, and decommissioning costs. Opening costs late in life is a real killer as older power plants mean ever more equipment needs to be replaced which then lowers capacity factors etc.

Also, LCOE battery backed solar is also under 60$/MWh https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/utility-scale_pv-plus-... Numbers may be slightly higher in Georgia, but still well below your estimate.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#77

Post by epistasis »

tracker1 wrote: post #9
coldpie wrote: post #6

Awesome! Nuclear is a fantastic and needed addition to the grid. The cost was high, but still quite cheap relative to the cost of continuing to build & run fossil fuel plants. It's a real shame we let 30+ years slip by, letting our ability to build projects like this wither. I hope there's lessons learned from this experience that will help get costs down for future plants. This should spur discussions on streamlinin…

Mostly agree... though I think Solar tech still needs to improve a bit. Nuclear power is definitely needed for the grid, though preferably more inland in places less likely to be affected by natural disaster. I get why the NY plant was closed. I also hope that the build and cost timelines can be shortened. I think the push for electric cars is a bit of a miss in this, only because the grid needs to improve dramatical…

I think you have that reversed, solar is great, and nuclear needs to improve.

Nuclear is rather old tech, and the more we learn about it the more expensive it gets. It's not a good fit for modern economies, because construction is so labor intensive and difficult to automate. Plus, the industry itself is a managerial failure and can't plan or execute on those plans effectively.

Storage is a great complement to the grid, because it lessens the need for transmission. And our original "storage" on the grid, hydro, was put there to deal with the shortcomings of nuclear, if you listen to Jigar Shah (though he is far far more bullish than me on the ability of the nuclear industry to deliver in the future).

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#78

Post by pfdietz »

glimshe wrote: post #21

One project in 30 years doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Nuclear is the only hope we have to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind. Solar and Wind should be used whenever possible, but they are not 100% of our solution mix, even if they are the majority. If we want to mitigate the impact of climate change, we need to invest in decreasing Nuclear costs and building many more plants in the US.

> Nuclear is the only hope we have to do to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind.

Nuclear would be entirely unsuited for this task. Nuclear provides baseload, it doesn't fill in gaps. If you try to run the reactor intermittently to counterbalance an intermittent source the cost of its output increases massively.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#79

Post by sidewndr46 »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #67
forrestthewoods wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydro isn’t clean (extreme ecosystem damage, both up and down stream); and if we dammed every river it’s a drop in the bucket of what we need. I don’t know how far solar/wind can get us. But hydro sucks more than most people realize.

My assumption is that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere pose a much greater existential threat to humanity than localized ecosystem damage resulting from river blockages. But maybe I'm wrong. Speaking of hydro, I do think pumped hydro-storage ought to be looked at a lot more for energy storage (esp. versus giant lithium-ion battery banks), especially as we transition to inconsistent renewable sources like solar and…

But it isn't "localized ecosystem damage". Building dams absolutely fucking destroys the ecosystems upstream and downstream. It's the civil engineering of burning the crops when you retreat. The "new" ecosystem has nothing in common with the prior ecosystems.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#80

Post by pfdietz »

coldpie wrote: post #72
KerrAvon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint just because someone has to go against the pro-nuclear orthodoxy here: economy of scale won't fix nuclear power. You will never get the cost (or risk) down far enough with existing technology, and none of the advanced technologies have panned out so far. And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough.

> And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough. I wish this were true, but I haven't seen convincing evidence that it is. Up here in Minnesota, we heat our homes with natural gas. Once that's converted to electric, that's a _lot_ of energy to generate and store, and it has to be absolutely reliable for six straight months or you're talking mass death. Nuclear seems like a perfect fit for this scenario…

Generating green hydrogen with renewables and then burning it in combined cycle plants would be cheaper than Vogtle-level nuclear.
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