First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation • Hacker News Board

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by matthewdgreen » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 12:54 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #639

matthewdgreen wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to see how these non-binding pledges mean anything. France, in particular, already generates ~75% of their electricity with nuclear. They’re really going to triple that and generate 225% of their current generation? The US is going to go from a small handful of planned reactors to hundreds? Where is the money for this coming from?

Most of these countries are implementing policies. France had a law to slowly phase out nuclear and switch to renewables. They've rescinded that law and instead passed legislation to build more nuclear plants, and make building those plants easier, putting into action Macron's call for a "nuclear renaissance". Also extending the life of existing plants. Japan, site of the second worst nuclear accident, had all, then…

France has a fleet of 56 reactors, about 14 of which are scheduled to be decommissioned in the 2030s or before. They currently plan to build 6 more reactors and “possibly” another 8 by 2050, which seems more like maintenance than expansion. By contrast, France constructed all of its current 56 reactors over a 15-year period, and the current plans do not look remotely comparable to that effort.

Japan generated 30% of its electricity from nuclear before 2011, and is now aspirationally hoping to generate 20% by 2030 when considering decommissioned reactors and restarts.

Poland has two planned reactors with construction targeted to begin in 2026 and a couple of additional proposed reactors. There are some plans to deploy SMRs in Poland, but the reactors aren’t even in the design stage yet and I can’t determine how many GW these small reactors will actually produce in total. I also can’t figure out where Rolls Royce is in the product cycle, except that they’re still somewhere in the design stage. Any deployments in Ukraine seem likely to be decades out.

The Hermes molten salt reactor looks pretty great, but it won’t generate electricity and the Hermes 2 project will also be a 28MW test reactor. I’m very bullish on this sort of research, including the SMR stuff, since — unlike the 1970s-era plants being built, it at least has the potential to take off. But it’s all very much at the research and design stage: actual commercial production may be decades out. Who knows where battery storage tech will be in two decades.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by adrianN » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #645

adrianN wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which new nuclear would you suggest instead? Hinkley C will cost about $160/MWh, right in the range given by Lazard.

I would suggest we look at overall stats instead of isolated examples. Time to construct a nuclear plant takes on average 7.5 years, a number that hasn't really budged in the last 50 years. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi... And since financing (i.e. interest) is the primary cost of nuclear (~50%), time is money. Hinkley and Flamanville are examples of the EPR, a brand new reactor type th…

Construction time is misleading. It takes a few days to a couple of weeks to build a wind turbine, but at least in Germany a wind turbine construction project takes more than five years.

So what better estimate would you suggest? What nuclear power plants where built in the last decade or so, for how much do they sell their power? How big will their decomissioning costs be per MWh?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by DrBazza » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

ano-ther wrote: post #2

See also: "Georgia nuclear rebirth arrives 7 years late, $17B over cost" https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-power-plant-vogtl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...

It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used to bash nuclear. And 100% from the perspective of human beings.

To put it into context, nuclear

* total human deaths due to nuclear since its inception is in the low thousands at worst, for the entire industry.

* total animal deaths due to nuclear since its inception is minimal, in fact, for example, wildlife around Chernobyl has flourished

* damage to the environment is minimal

* waste is tiny by volume, zero CO2, and can be buried deeply where no human will ever get to it.

Versus fossil fuels:

* has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of humans

* has killed millions if not hundreds of millions of animals through climate change, oil spillage, fires and so on

* has destroyed thousands of square miles of land for open cast mining, oil slicks, and so on

* waste dumps thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day plus other byproducts

So, what's the actual monetary cost of the usage of fossil fuels? How much money needs to be spent to mitigate climate change? Or figuring out how to de-extinct species? Or restoring habitats after cleaning up oil slicks? Or attempting to the put the land 'right' after open cast mining?

How much money are we going to spend on figuring out 'energy storage' for green power, when nuclear power is already stored in the uranium, in a tiny volume?

In fact how much money could we have saved by going long on nuclear in the 60s and 70s, had it not been for ill-educated, and ill-informed campaigns by CND and Greenpeace, for example? And how much better would the environment be right now?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by corethree » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #646

corethree wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gems isn't good also because it's mostly aesthetic. No intrinsic utility other then being rare and pretty. You won't actually "improve" society with gems. It's hard to distill this in technical terms but I hope you're able to understand without the need to get pedantic. Gemstones therefore are more of a reflection of countries with the ability to purchase the gemstones as an import and less of a reflection of the cou…

I know what you mean but it's not that clear cut. Rockets? USA. Phones? Assembled in Asia but running iOS or Android. Electric cars? Tesla's still ahead. A lot of the move to China was a choice to have them do the work because they quoted cheaper, which is not irreversible.

It is clear. First of all you brought up Elon. That guy is an anomaly. If it wasn't for him both industries he's responsible for pushing forward would have been viciously surpassed ages ago.

Additionally byd will be surpassing Tesla soon. It's projected to in less than a year.

As for phones, the entire stack is owned by Asia. Software is the only thing we have left and most of it is open source.

Pretty clear cut from your examples. But also clear cut from common sense.

I suggest you find other examples to help detract from the obvious generality. Look into Tiny niches like precision and highly advanced bespoke manufacturing where the US still holds a shakey lead. These areas may help you construct an argument that looks effective but obviously isn't.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by ForRealsies » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

Projectiboga wrote: post #523

Projectiboga wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three Mile Island was a partial meltdown. It wasn't just a fender bender.

Here is the best summary I can post quickly. Sorry for the source. After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut…

[dead]

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by goodpoint » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #631

_ph_ wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you claim the safety requirements were overzealous, do you have any data to substantiate your claim?

On nuclear construction cost increases, from Crowley and Griffith 1982, “US construction cost rise threatens nuclear option” (via @whatisnuclear): """ Ironically, some of the decisions that have been made in the name of improving safety margins for low probability events, may have reduced the safety margins for high probability events. The UE&C piping study uncovered numerous areas where the tolerances requested in t…

And yet... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by goodpoint » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #578

_ph_ wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only sensible reaction to such an incident to check your designs for faults and review all reactors under construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to continue with the construction and which changes would be required.

Coal cause more cancer and pumps a huge amount of radioactive material into the sky but I've not seen anyone closing coal power stations to stop that. The fear of nuclear power is just one of those irrational fears..

This is pure whataboutism.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by goodpoint » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #604

geysersam wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incredibly impressive. Since it takes approximately 6 years to build a reactor in China that amounts to about 4 reactors per year.

And total caoacity of zhose pales in comparison to wind, solar coal being built at the same time. Funny, the numbers are all there, all you have to do is comparing them to realize nuclear is far from growing.

And it keeps getting more expensive.

People are calling for small, modular and repeatable nuclear reactors that could theoretically get cheaper with scale.

You know what is is actually small, modular and repeatable and getting cheaper with scale? Solar panels and wind turbines.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by mlrtime » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:01 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #60

icelancer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual it's some from Column A and B. Hard to tell sometimes what is graft and what is incompetence.

A little of A, B, and C. A) Idealistic voters with little interest in detail or execution. B) Hard working state employees executing in an ineffective way because they are working on over constrained problems with conflicting and sometime impossible goals. C) A number of opportunists that take advantage of poor rulemaking and bureaucratic disorganization. For what it is worth, I dont think corruption is a major drive…

>The city wants to keep invasive species out...

These small examples are extremely frustrating as a tax payer. What is the solution to these examples, or does one just try to ignore it as a price of living in that society?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Post by bumby » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

corethree wrote: post #458

bumby wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "building"? It's a nebulous term. If you mean building infrastructure, that's true, but also partly because the US invested heavily in the same type of infrastructure a generation or two prior. I would disagree with the pharmaceuticals because that is a manufacturing-intensive industry. Throwing out gems (because that probably isn't a good case, like you said), it still amounts t…

Gems isn't good also because it's mostly aesthetic. No intrinsic utility other then being rare and pretty. You won't actually "improve" society with gems. It's hard to distill this in technical terms but I hope you're able to understand without the need to get pedantic. Gemstones therefore are more of a reflection of countries with the ability to purchase the gemstones as an import and less of a reflection of the cou…

It's a little strange that you dug your heels in on the gemstones because I was trying to be gracious and steelmanning your point by conceding that portion. But since you brought it up again, I'll explain why I think it's wrong. Gems are not just "mostly aesthetic". 80% or so of diamonds are used in industrial purposes, ie manufacturing. So if you concede that manufacturing is a good measure, by extension so are gems. The same holds for many other gems. E.g., rubies are used in lasers, continuous measuring machines (which are heavily used in aerospace) etc. Even if that wasn't the case, your take is overly utilitarian IMO. Under your logic, any type of art (movies, music, visual art) are worthless as exports because they are more aesthetic than functional. I don't think I want to live in a society that de-prioritizes art to that degree.

The rest of your post seems like a deflection because you can't seem to adequately illuminate your point. Asking for clarification is not being pedantic any more than hiding behind ambiguous terms makes for a convincing argument. I'm not, for one, saying the US manufactures more than Asia. But I'm also not in agreement that it's languishing, save for a single industry like aerospace. If you look at the actual data, there is still a fairly robust manufacturing base in America, especially for a service-oriented economy. You wrote a lot of words but didn't contribute much to the argument other than another vague diatribe when asked for a finer point, and that's often indicative of not having a thorough understanding.