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First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

arstechnica.com

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Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#101

Post by cesarb »

monero-xmr wrote: post #100
kragen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're confusing the northeast of brazil, which is what cesar was talking about, with the northeast of the usa these are not just in different countries but in vastly different climates in different hemispheres the exact page you linked in your comment literally answers your question: 'due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. ... H…

It’s strange because wind is supposedly overwhelmingly cheaper and better, yet even with tons of government subsidies and political will behind it, it still can’t be built. Wouldn’t something truly more cost effective be easy to build because it’s cheaper? Clearly something doesn’t add up.

> It’s strange because wind is supposedly overwhelmingly cheaper and better

There's two kinds of wind power: onshore and offshore. Their costs are different, with onshore being cheaper. The ones in Brazil are all onshore, while the one in the article you linked to is offshore. In the USA, offshore is even more complicated because of the Jones Act (it needs specialized ships to transport and erect the structures, while onshore needs only common cranes).

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#102

Post by Ericson2314 »

scythe wrote: post #2

>With the price of renewables dropping precipitously, however, the project's economics have worsened, and backers started pulling out of the project. I would expect this to continue limiting investment in nuclear, since the outlook for renewables just keeps getting better, and the stumbling blocks are increasingly jejune, like we can't build powerlines fast enough.

The problem is those prices are wrong; they are pricing the hard thing.

Renewable sells when it wants to, for dirt cheap. And they don't sell when they don't want to. At that point, today, typically natural gas picks up the ball. Other storage is as much in its infancy as SMRs, as is "demand response".

The pricing people compare so favorably isn't pure renewables, it's that renewables + fall back fossil mix.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#103

Post by Laaas »

> The decision to cancel the project followed an update from NuScale this year regarding the cost of building the reactors, which had soared to $9.3 billion from $5.3 billion because of rising interest rates and inflation.

Even $5.3B seems very expensive. For reference, (the new Finnish) Olkiluoto-3 was €11 billion, for 1600 MW. The article says 6 * 77 MW = 539 MW!

How is it that we've become so bad at building?

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#104

Post by matthewdgreen »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #102
scythe wrote: post #2

>With the price of renewables dropping precipitously, however, the project's economics have worsened, and backers started pulling out of the project. I would expect this to continue limiting investment in nuclear, since the outlook for renewables just keeps getting better, and the stumbling blocks are increasingly jejune, like we can't build powerlines fast enough.

The problem is those prices are wrong; they are pricing the hard thing. Renewable sells when it wants to, for dirt cheap. And they don't sell when they don't want to. At that point, today, typically natural gas picks up the ball. Other storage is as much in its infancy as SMRs, as is "demand response". The pricing people compare so favorably isn't pure renewables, it's that renewables + fall back fossil mix.

This is true. And it also highlights what the part I don't understand about these nuclear investments.

Absent massive government subsidies, any nuclear-based solution has to compete against the renewable + fossil mix, which is dramatically cheaper than any nuclear solution. That means any nuclear investments will have to operate in a pretty unfavorable market until renewables reach a saturation point (maybe 50% of energy generation or more.) That point is still somewhere in the future.

It's not clear when that saturation point will arrives (or if it will), but when that happens today's nuclear investors will also have to "bet" that storage costs won't have dropped to the point where storage eats a big chunk of the market for nuclear generation. And finally: in the course of taking this risky long term bet, nuclear manufacturers will have to build out huge amounts of manufacturing capacity so they can actually meet market demand.

Anyway, the whole thing seems like a pretty risky bet. Maybe not such a risky bet if the technology was mature, but very risky given the fact that storage is relatively mature and basically needs a lot of manufacturing and process tweaks to wipe out the benefits of nuclear.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#105

Post by Retric »

kragen wrote: post #99
apatheticonion wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey is set to get 10% of its grid electricity from the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant [1] The build cost has been 22B (excluding loans) and it will have a capacity of 4456MW meaning it's $4.9/W. On average the cost per Watt for solar is 27 cents (excluding loans and costs for storage) [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkuyu_Nuclear_Power_Plant [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices EDIT: incorrect…

i just noticed that you're linking a page about panel prices two problems one, pv modules are typically about a third of the cost of a utility-scale solar farm; things like installation labor and power electronics are also part of the cost. so roughly we should expect solar projects to cost about 80 cents per peak watt based on that number two, that page ends in 02021, but pv module prices have fallen by about a thir…

German solar policies are insane. Nation wide capacity factor was 11.6% in 2018. The numbers are so low because they keep building solar in the northern parts of the country which are absolutely terrible for solar.

Brandenburg has a stupidly large amount of solar compared to a terrible amount of sunlight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#/media/...

Meanwhile the best location in Germany the south southern tip of Baden-Württemberg only has a relatively small fraction of their total installed solar. I haven’t worked out the exact numbers but they are something like 20+% less efficient than they could be. Granted they would need to build more power transmission lines but it’s a small county so such projects would be fairly cheap compared to the efficiency gain.

PS: May solar power plants on the US are over 30% capacity factor and the average is ~25%. We’re a long way from the equator. In a perfect location solar tracking PV should get around 40% capacity factor. You beat 1/pi because over the day an angled panel casts a wider shadow than the width of the panel.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#106

Post by Pat_Murph »

Laaas wrote: post #103

> The decision to cancel the project followed an update from NuScale this year regarding the cost of building the reactors, which had soared to $9.3 billion from $5.3 billion because of rising interest rates and inflation. Even $5.3B seems very expensive. For reference, (the new Finnish) Olkiluoto-3 was €11 billion, for 1600 MW. The article says 6 * 77 MW = 539 MW! How is it that we've become so bad at building?

We've gotten better at billing than building.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#107

Post by BasilPH »

David Roberts from Volts talked about why he thinks SRMs are overhyped last week. Here's the transcript[^0], but his main points are _(I fed the whole transcript to GPT-4-turbo model for this)_:

- SMRs are not yet delivering on their promised benefits and cost savings due to challenges in scaling and production.

- The SMR concept is yet to prove itself with efficient and cost-effective factory-made parts and repeatable construction practices.

- Concern exists that the enthusiasm around SMRs could lead to more unfocused subsidies for the nuclear industry without addressing the industry's deeper issues of inefficiency and historical missteps.

- SMRs are seen as one option among many for balancing renewable energy, and they should not be considered the only solution.

- Their capabilities are mostly theoretical at this stage, and there's uncertainty if they can bridge the gap between their promise and reality in terms of cost and deployment hurdles.

- SMRs might receive undue favor over other equally promising technologies for providing firm power.

In conclusion, David believes SMRs are getting more attention and investment than warranted by their current capabilities and progress, potentially detracting from other solutions that may offer better returns or efficiency for transitioning to a renewable energy grid.

[^0]: https://transcripts.volts.wtf/the-volts-catalyst-pod-crossov... (starts at around 26:13)

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#108

Post by hotpotamus »

Laaas wrote: post #103

> The decision to cancel the project followed an update from NuScale this year regarding the cost of building the reactors, which had soared to $9.3 billion from $5.3 billion because of rising interest rates and inflation. Even $5.3B seems very expensive. For reference, (the new Finnish) Olkiluoto-3 was €11 billion, for 1600 MW. The article says 6 * 77 MW = 539 MW! How is it that we've become so bad at building?

> How is it that we've become so bad at building?

What industry would you prefer your children to go into? Construction or just about anything else?

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#109

Post by krupan »

BasilPH wrote: post #107

David Roberts from Volts talked about why he thinks SRMs are overhyped last week. Here's the transcript[^0], but his main points are _(I fed the whole transcript to GPT-4-turbo model for this)_: - SMRs are not yet delivering on their promised benefits and cost savings due to challenges in scaling and production. - The SMR concept is yet to prove itself with efficient and cost-effective factory-made parts and repeatab…

It feels like most of those bullet points, if not all, could be applied to any fledgling new energy source, or actually any new technology in general. I hope there's more to this analysis than just these bullet points

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#110

Post by Nickersf »

Laaas wrote: post #103

> The decision to cancel the project followed an update from NuScale this year regarding the cost of building the reactors, which had soared to $9.3 billion from $5.3 billion because of rising interest rates and inflation. Even $5.3B seems very expensive. For reference, (the new Finnish) Olkiluoto-3 was €11 billion, for 1600 MW. The article says 6 * 77 MW = 539 MW! How is it that we've become so bad at building?

It depends on what needs to be built. If the regulators 'like' what needs to be built it'll pop up fast, look at the wind turbine expansion in Europe and parts of the USA. In terms of material input that dwarves what building one nuclear power plant or blast furnace requires.
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