First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by DanielVZ » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 6:30 AM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #238

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?

Because of either ignoring, willfully or otherwise, scaling laws. The relationship between price and size of most plants takes the form of: Price(size) = fixed + K*size^b Where b is almost always less than 1, can go as low as 0.6. So building 6 small reactors will be more expensive than building a single reactor 6 times the size. This is the difference between vertically scaling (bigger thing) vs horizontal scaling (…

But at the same time horizontal scaling is more elastic; and depending on how demand behaves, elasticity can result in less cost.

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

#242

Post by fulafel » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #238

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?

Because of either ignoring, willfully or otherwise, scaling laws. The relationship between price and size of most plants takes the form of: Price(size) = fixed + K*size^b Where b is almost always less than 1, can go as low as 0.6. So building 6 small reactors will be more expensive than building a single reactor 6 times the size. This is the difference between vertically scaling (bigger thing) vs horizontal scaling (…

The EPR seems to disprove this.

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

#243

Post by trenchgun » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 6:59 AM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #111

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?

Olkiluoto-3's budget also overran a lot to reach 11b. It's also an extra reactor at an existing nuclear plant so perhaps that somehow reduces costs, and it's built by a very established company. Now, on the other hand, as far as I know NuScale never built a commercial reactor before... so we'll see how many of their current projects actually come to life.

Olkiluoto 3 was a first of a kind project too. Was built by an established company, but one that had been on a decades long hiatus in building nuclear power plants.

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

#244

Post by SlightlyLeftPad » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #133

audunw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar will certainly use more land unless you build on rooftops or do agrovoltaics. But that’s not the norm for large scale production yet. Wind depends on how you calculate area used. The zone that excludes other wind turbines and residential buildings will be much larger. But the area used by just the base is obviously quite small. When placed between farm plots the area usage is very effective. The risk of acciden…

Nuclear and solar also can dual-use most of their footprint. For nuclear, the keep-out zone becomes a de facto nature preserve. And a pretty good one at that, since the keep out is enforced well. Solar installations can be grazed. Alternatively, bifacial panels can be installed vertically east-west and the strips between can be farmed. Or the panels can be placed on rooftops. Or used to shade parking lots. Et cetera.

Honestly the parking lots should be the absolute first stop on the search for places to put solar. Literally all parking lots can and should be filled with solar. Nature preserves should be the absolute last place to install it. Why on earth would we displace wildlife and thus rile up the nature conservationists when the parking lot real estate has already displaced the wildlife that was there? The benefits are two-fold, you get shade for cars which reduces our total combined fuel consumption for hvac, at least by an order of magnitude. Even in snowy places, you get covered parking which saves from idling cars to melt ice, in addition to the generation.

All that needs to be done is that it needs to make financial sense to install. If we can find a way to make it so compelling financially, you’d be crazy not to fill your parking lot with solar.

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

#245

Post by tomatocracy » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 7:29 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #223

tomatocracy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though the fact that it's 2012 prices and indexed to CPI does a lot - that's roughly £65/MWh in current prices. And despite all that it's still cheaper than offshore wind. You can also look at Spain - the CfDs aren't really comparable since the way CfDs are used there is different but LCOE is probably in the 40s-50s EUR/MWh for new build solar PV. But there are now meaningful curtailment issues in some places du…

Yea, UK solar is still offsetting natural gas so it’s viable. One issue for significantly higher UK solar production is they use more electricity in the winter. January 2023 was 26 TWh where July 2022 was only 20 TWh which is the opposite of solar’s peaks. https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electr... (Older reports on bottom) They can import from France, but France also has higher demand in the win…

Yes, and this is when the vast majority of homes are still heated using gas central heating. If we switch away from that to heat pumps+resistive heating in anything like meaningful amounts, this difference will get much more pronounced.

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

#246

Post by danbruc » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 8:49 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #204

danbruc wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why six? Why not build one and then see?

One still needs to build the structures with the water pools and everything else. If one bothers to buy the land, contract construction workers, lease heavy machinery, they could as well build 6x as big and spread the fixed costs over that. NuScale was designed to work with up to 12 modules. It's too bad it didn't work out commercially. Their other projects will probably get cancelled as well if they face the same pr…

But would the cost of that structures not be pretty insignificant compared to the cost of the reactors? Or build the support structure for six reactors but initially only one reactor, sell five more when the first one works. In relative terms it makes no difference whether a cost overrun of 100 percent is for one or six reactors, in absolute term it of course makes a difference and it seems you might have a better chance of not getting your project cancelled if the absolute overrun in smaller. But this might of course, as you mentioned, also be a matter of scale, hard to tell without knowing where exactly the additional costs come from.

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

#247

Post by effie » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 9:53 AM UTC

theultdev wrote: post #228

effie wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial nuclear should be very hard, almost impossible. This seems to be the correct conclusion after all the accidents and the reasons for them - incompetent, self-serving management pushing dangerous commands on the personnel (Chernobyl,Three Mile Island) or normalizing bad architecture and security plans (Fukushima). Better expensive energy than another major nuclear accident. Nuclear energy can be done safely…

Nuclear is by far the safest form of energy and is developed safely in many countries without the strict overregulation that the US has. Pointing to extreme events with outdated designs has nothing to do with this.

Extreme events and subsequent changes are why it can be the "safest form of energy". After Chernobyl and Fukushima, regulation did change in those countries as well.

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

#248

Post by petre » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 9:53 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #246

petre wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One still needs to build the structures with the water pools and everything else. If one bothers to buy the land, contract construction workers, lease heavy machinery, they could as well build 6x as big and spread the fixed costs over that. NuScale was designed to work with up to 12 modules. It's too bad it didn't work out commercially. Their other projects will probably get cancelled as well if they face the same pr…

But would the cost of that structures not be pretty insignificant compared to the cost of the reactors? Or build the support structure for six reactors but initially only one reactor, sell five more when the first one works. In relative terms it makes no difference whether a cost overrun of 100 percent is for one or six reactors, in absolute term it of course makes a difference and it seems you might have a better ch…

16.5% for the buildings and roughly 50% for construction services, engineerig services, owner's costs, structures and improvement according to the aricle I linked in my other post. I suspect that specifically those costs are the ones that cause most of the of overruns and delays. Also, the whole process is certified by the NRC and you can't get creative with it. There are 4, 6 and 12 reactor configurations for a given plant.

https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/products/voygr-smr-plants

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

#249

Post by WhereIsTheTruth » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 10:04 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #194

treypitt wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's just America, and its not just nuclear, it's civil engineering & construction projects of all kind that have ballooned in complexity and cost due to myriad political and regulatory causes. France can build reactors cheaply and easily due to standardized reactor designs; I'm not sure the US has ever replicated a reactor build (ie, every reactor is built in a different & unique way)

> France can build reactors cheaply and easily[...] It can? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

They can, this one project is just the exception, it was a failure since the start (collaboration between France and Germany, Germany later ditched it in favor of their solar panel projects.. )

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

#250

Post by thesnide » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #244

bryanlarsen wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear and solar also can dual-use most of their footprint. For nuclear, the keep-out zone becomes a de facto nature preserve. And a pretty good one at that, since the keep out is enforced well. Solar installations can be grazed. Alternatively, bifacial panels can be installed vertically east-west and the strips between can be farmed. Or the panels can be placed on rooftops. Or used to shade parking lots. Et cetera.

Honestly the parking lots should be the absolute first stop on the search for places to put solar. Literally all parking lots can and should be filled with solar. Nature preserves should be the absolute last place to install it. Why on earth would we displace wildlife and thus rile up the nature conservationists when the parking lot real estate has already displaced the wildlife that was there? The benefits are two-f…

So that.

Also 1 level parking lots tend to be black, and therefore tend to accumulate heat much more than the field it is replacing.

So transforming some energy it gets into electricity even sounds like a nice side effect.