Google to back three new nuclear projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#301

Post by _aavaa_ » Fri, May 09, 2025, 1:48 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #294

_aavaa_ wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4x300 MWe for 20.9B CAD for this vs Vogtle 3 and 4 are 2x 1117 MWe for 36.8B USD. So the starting stated price is only 20% cheaper than that train wreck. Will love to see how high this number gets given it's a first of its kind.

It will likely be more expensive than Vogtle, smaller reactors are just more expensive and they go big because it's more cost effective. What's slightly different is the financial risk profile. Failing on a 1x 300WM $5B project is slightly easier than a $18B 1GW project. My personal hypothesis is that nuclear decisions are made almost entirely along financial lines, instead of the safety concerns that dominate most d…

I think this is actually backwards. The reactors are build big to get economies of scale. Building 4 small ones, each of which will also go over budget, only to produce a more expensive product out of each (electricity) puts your economics backwards.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#302

Post by epistasis » Fri, May 09, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #301

epistasis wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will likely be more expensive than Vogtle, smaller reactors are just more expensive and they go big because it's more cost effective. What's slightly different is the financial risk profile. Failing on a 1x 300WM $5B project is slightly easier than a $18B 1GW project. My personal hypothesis is that nuclear decisions are made almost entirely along financial lines, instead of the safety concerns that dominate most d…

I think this is actually backwards. The reactors are build big to get economies of scale. Building 4 small ones, each of which will also go over budget, only to produce a more expensive product out of each (electricity) puts your economics backwards.

It's about the amount of capital at risk, not the per kWh unit economics. The risk is of complete failure of build and getting $0.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#303

Post by XorNot » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

crote wrote: post #287

XorNot wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear reactors do not surprise explode. The Chinese designs are passively safe: cut off all power and they'll simply sit there. They do not require active cooling. The Gen 4 designs, which they also have, are physics safe: literally drop bombs on them and they still won't fail (bombing a nuclear plant in general is an over stated risk for other reasons too). They're building those now too.

> Nuclear reactors do not surprise explode. The Chinese designs are passively safe: cut off all power and they'll simply sit there. They do not require active cooling. The same was said of Fukushima. And it was - until a tsunami fried all the backup local power keeping the control systems alive. Turns out the "passive cooling" still requires some valves to be controllable...

Fukushima was not the same type of design as the new Chinese reactors.

For one thing, no reactor is classed as "passively safe" if it needs active cooling for decay heat.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#304

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

bhelkey wrote: post #284

gcheong wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By sheer numbers, yes, but the kinds of birds killed are different. Larger, slower reproducing birds such as eagles, condors, etc. are more at risk being killed by wind turbines because deaths in those groups have a much larger effect whereas cats kill a much larger number of birds but they tend to be smaller, faster reproducing species and as such their numbers overall aren't as much at risk.

Cats are one of five categories with >100x the rate of wind turbine bird deaths [1]. If your position is that all five of these factors don't impact larger birds, the onus is on you to back that claim up. [1] https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-k...

I think his point was that birds much too large for a cat to take down are taken down by wind turbines, also some birds are much more rare than others, and many large species are relatively slow to reproduce as well.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#305

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:43 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #33

sebastialonso wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never understood the "I'm solar" or "I'm nuclear" crowd. The issue is an engineering problem, not a baseball match. As an system-oriented person, give me a healthy combination of available, battle tested, new and promising solutions, fine-tuning weaknesses with strengths. Go to the stadium to solve your local team/visiting team issues. You are all falling to Big Fossil antics.

The nuclear boosters are particularly odd. I can engage in solar boosterism with my own money: I have 3.7kW on my house. I'm not going to have a backyard reactor, this isn't the Jetsons.

We're weird because we want a proven power supply to be built and used? Are the French really that much more capable than the USA that we can't replicate or surpass what they've done in their country with nuclear?

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#306

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

nandomrumber wrote: post #84

looofooo0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets face it deploying nuclear around the world will add other mayor headaches like nuclear profileration.

What nuclear proliferation? How many nuclear electricity states are there? 30 How many nuclear weapons states are there? 9 What headaches are those nine nuclear capable states providing, exactly? How has the world been made worse by having nine nuclear capable states? Practically, not just hypothetical anxieties about an unrealised future.

Right now two of them are ready to go to war, and potentially nuclear war if one starts losing over a relatively small strip of land.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#307

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:51 AM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #51

HideousKojima wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. The histories of pretty much every green party in the western world and their anti-nuclear activism suggests otherwise.

You ever notice how "green parties" are somehow so incredibly effective against nuclear and not effective against fossil fuels? Why do you think that is? Somehow I'm not convinced its the activism holding nuclear back.

Because fossil fuel interests have 1000x the resources, capital, and influence of either green parties or nuclear proponents?

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#308

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:52 AM UTC

spookie wrote: post #87

HideousKojima wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. The histories of pretty much every green party in the western world and their anti-nuclear activism suggests otherwise.

Green Parties are such a farce for the most part. They serve other purposes, not aligned with what you really want or defend ;)

In the US it serves as a spoiler for republican interests because they tend to take many more votes away from democrats than republicans. So they are useful for at least one party.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#309

Post by EasyMark » Fri, May 09, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

dporter wrote: post #62

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that nuclear power has experienced negative learning by doing throughout its entire life? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... You don’t get ”free electricity” with absolutely massive handouts to the nuclear industry. Instead renewables and storage are delivering on the ”too cheap to meter” promise.

Renewable power is cheap because it also receives massive government handouts in the form of tax credits.

that used to be true, but it's not really true any longer; they could even do well without subsidies, but no industry will ever give up free money.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#310

Post by Duwensatzaj » Fri, May 09, 2025, 4:13 AM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #277

Duwensatzaj wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coercive eugenics used to be a progressive platform. More recently progressive prosecutors have been tried and the results are pretty clear they lead to increased crime. Consider perhaps the progressive policies have been considered and rejected for good reasons.

> More recently progressive prosecutors have been tried and the results are pretty clear they lead to increased crime. Crime increases were across the country, regardless of the politics of the prosecutor. They are believed to be tied to the pandemic. In places where progressive DAs remain, crime has subsequently decreased to historic lows - just like the rest of the country.

Wrong.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/VBQCPEMU5RZVASBS93WP?t...