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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

#271

Post by sumtechguy »

hotpotamus wrote: post #191
sumtechguy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me personally no. I have 20+ years doing what I do. I am paid decently for that. But fresh out of high school and willing to do the apprentice/mentor thing I probably would have considered it very compelling. It was 2-3x what I made starting what I do now.

It's not a job I'd do either for a few reasons, principally marginal physical disability; something many tradesmen acquire and learn to live with, but to which I was essentially born. That said, if the job is so attractive to young people (I'm guessing primarily men), then why do you think that not much has changed in the intervening decade?

Because as a society we have been taught that trade work is not worth doing. One of the things you just said is what I always hear. I had an uncle quit a high paying job at Apple to become an apprentice plumber. Within 5 years he was making just as much and loved his job and wished he had done it earlier. The Apple job was 'too much stress' and 'when I leave a job site that work will be done or done within the next day or so'. He retired in his late 60s doing it.

Not all trade work is swinging a hammer or lugging huge things around (what we have been sold). Most of it is fit and trim work. Fiddly work where you are making sure that wire is lined up just right to fit in this wall or knowing where to put the pressure hose. Yeah swinging the hammer work and lugging stuff around is how you get started. You 'put in your dues'. It is a form of hazing. Sort of how we give interns the 'build this weird form that no one will ever use' work.

I know the trades guys are doing decent. The ones I see are driving around in brand new f150s (go look at the prices on them). As scarcity for their work is driving up prices. I can put up a job opening for a programmer and have 200+ applicants. Do you think the trades are getting lots of people asking to do this work? No it is seen as 'low class work'.

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

#272

Post by hotpotamus »

sumtechguy wrote: post #271
hotpotamus wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a job I'd do either for a few reasons, principally marginal physical disability; something many tradesmen acquire and learn to live with, but to which I was essentially born. That said, if the job is so attractive to young people (I'm guessing primarily men), then why do you think that not much has changed in the intervening decade?

Because as a society we have been taught that trade work is not worth doing. One of the things you just said is what I always hear. I had an uncle quit a high paying job at Apple to become an apprentice plumber. Within 5 years he was making just as much and loved his job and wished he had done it earlier. The Apple job was 'too much stress' and 'when I leave a job site that work will be done or done within the next d…

I have family who have done trade work and have dabbled myself. Not only did my brother make an actual fraction of what a developer would make, he did not get sick days or health insurance. He's doing much better now in an engineering job, and will not be going back. It's the weirdest thing how I always see people on the internet who don't do trade jobs talk about how much they pay, and yet if you look up the actual statistics, you'll see that these jobs are paid salaries that the people on this forum would scoff at. And those statistics match the reality of the actual tradespeople in my family.

I'm quite aware of how much a new F-150 costs, perhaps you should look up the length of the average vehicle loan these days.

I bet I do know what would help the trades to be seen as higher class work; paying more lol.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by naasking »

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…

> 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?

Politicians probably don't like it because the construction riles up their constituents while it's happening.

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

#276

Post by pembrook »

ohyes wrote: post #264
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?

Like, imagine something maybe 1000x as complicated as your car, that has to work reliably 100% of the time for 50+ years . Now imagine that we don’t have any practice building one of these things because people have been scared of building them for approximately 40 years, so the last person to make one is 70-90. Now imagine that the failure case for this thing is a disaster that causes an expensive cleanup in the sur…

You're right, however nearly every single point was also true 50 years ago, when we built many of these things around the globe (and many are still going, pumping out the cleanest energy the world has ever seen).

The real difference between then and now, is willingness to take on risk. Developed countries of today are essentially victims of the innovators dilemma. We're fat and happy and complacent, and that's why we will never have anything new or better. People in developed countries don't even want the inconvenience of having children anymore. Why take risk to make things better for the next generation when we're not even willing to create them?

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

#277

Post by c048 »

trenchgun wrote: post #243
mytailorisrich wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to go into too much detail, since my SO that worked on the project might otherwise get into trouble, but some of their cost saving measures simply turned out for the worse. Several core components of the reactor had to be entirely removed and rebuilt from scratch because they tried to cheapen out.

Similar reactors built after this will not have these growing pains.

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

#278

Post by JauntTrooper »

Can someone explain the appeal of =small= nuclear reactors to me? Are the manufacturing cost savings the article cites really that much of a game changer?

I'd love to see us use more nuclear power. I would think =large= power plants would be more efficient though, and would save on things like personnel, security and regulatory costs.

I feel like the biggest risks to a nuclear power plant are the tiny chances for catastrophic failure -- terrorism, earthquakes, tsunamis and human error.

Having 50x these plants seeded close to population centers seems like it would make it more difficult to protect against these risks. I would also imagine most projects would face NIMBY resistance, which would lead to lots of lawyer fees and lengthy permitting timelines if they even get off the ground. What am I missing?

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

#279

Post by fragmede »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #278

Can someone explain the appeal of =small= nuclear reactors to me? Are the manufacturing cost savings the article cites really that much of a game changer? I'd love to see us use more nuclear power. I would think =large= power plants would be more efficient though, and would save on things like personnel, security and regulatory costs. I feel like the biggest risks to a nuclear power plant are the tiny chances for cat…

There's a certain amount of difficulty in making a nuclear reactor, so going from zero to one (of your specific design of reactor) is going to be very hard. In order for that one to work, there's going to be a ton of mistakes and learning, and after all that, you have one working, very expensive power plant. But because you put your eggs all in one basket, that's basically all you can build for the next few decades. There's no going from 1 -> 10. there's no money, no political will to, and no demand for it, the one plant is just so big.

If instead we concentrate on going from 1 -> 10 by building multiple smaller reactors, we get good at building them, and we're forced to productize it just a little bit. Make the machine that makes the machine, as it were. After proving 1 -> 10, then going from 10 -> 100 becomes possible; viable, so other people and places that need it can get one, affordably (well, relatively).

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

#280

Post by euroderf »

c048 wrote: post #277
trenchgun wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to go into too much detail, since my SO that worked on the project might otherwise get into trouble, but some of their cost saving measures simply turned out for the worse. Several core components of the reactor had to be entirely removed and rebuilt from scratch because they tried to cheapen out. Similar reactors built after this will not have these growing pains.

Weren't there also issues with the training of the workforce ?
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