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Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

reuters.com

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Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rdsubhas wrote: post #41
loufe wrote: post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

We have completely screwed up market price discovery for energy with big govt involvement and subsidies. The numbers I see everywhere are cherry picked to present a winner and loser. e.g. Depending on whose point of view you read, solar/wind prices either includes or not: subsidies, storage, land, weather, green label costs passed on to customers, interest rates, etc. Coal prices either includes or not: labor, import…

I’m hoping all these comments on HN I see that follow the pattern "I was wrong about something important, but rather than admit that, I'm going to believe that the truth is unknowable" are just the first step on someone's journey to accept an unpleasant shock to their ego.

It's depressing to think there's a growing army of geeks who have given up on science, rationality and objective reality just because they got sucked in by some propaganda and tied their identity a bit too firmly to it to ever escape.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#62

Post by cipher_system »

krono wrote: post #34
cipher_system wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like this. The project started in 2000, construction began in 2005 and should have been completed in 2010. Original cost was 3 billion euro but landed on over 10 billion euro. It is the first nuclear reactor in Europe for 15 years so not much working experience or available sub contractors. Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that. If nuclear energy…

> Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that. Any insight into the why?

I read a report on that a while back, can't find it now but these are the highlights I remember:

* The overall design must be done before construction starts, also no room for regulatory changes. Waterfall is better than Agile for nuclear.

* Experienced project management, work force and supply chain.

* Build many reactors on the same site and don't use a new reactor design.

* Work force is overall cheaper and possibly also more productive in Asia.

More or less the same as for everything else, the more you do it the better and cheaper it gets but it requires a lot of upfront costs.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#63

Post by rectang »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #52
firekvz wrote: post #48

Comming from a country where nucler power is nowhere near the radar, what is the case against nuclear power? it seems such a nobrainer for me to use

It usually goes like this: Chernobyl! Fukushima! Radiation! Waste! Death! Death!! DEATH TO ALL HUMANITY!!!

You left out proliferation of dual-use technologies. The fewer countries with advanced nuclear capabilities, the more thinly spread the expertise necessary to build nuclear weapons.

If Russia didn't have nukes, its imperialistic ambitious would be curtailed. The ability to shield conventional assaults behind a nuclear threat is destabilizing for the rules-based world order.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#64

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

aunty_helen wrote: post #35
lostlogin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-nuclear crowd being successful might just be an alternate spin on the failure of the nuclear industry.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

The truth lies in the resolution of the conflict in Chernobyl,

and in every place connected by water to Fukushima.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#65

Post by anonporridge »

LatteLazy wrote: post #32
rdsubhas wrote: post #27

What I find incredible is: Once this fully ramps up, this one power plant is expected to satisfy 14% of the entire country's electricity needs. 7 of these could power an entire country, 24/7.

That's the average. But you'd need a few more for peak demand and a few more for when these are offline for maintenance, refuelling etc.

Ideally, you overbuild and have some flexible consumer of electricity that can arbitrarily ramp consumption up or down to suck off any excess supply whenever inflexible basal civilization demand doesn't match supply, e.g. ramp up when everyone is asleep and ramp down if a reactor needs to go offline.

This is called demand response, https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/..., and it's probably as important of a component to future grid management as energy storage.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#66

Post by mantas »

thfuran wrote: post #51
8ytecoder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Energy independence is a cost that’s not factored in. (Then again, solar/wind could serve both factors well)

Where are the uranium mines?

A single shipment from wherever can last a looooong time. It's not like gas or oil where you need continuous supply. And there're deposits in civilised world.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#67

Post by mikaeluman »

Finland has no other good source of energy. In Sweden and Norway we have hydro capacity that covers more than 50% of need. Then we can cover the rest with nuclear and a small portion of wind power.

In Finland nuclear is the only option. Happy to see it come online.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#68

Post by iso1631 »

firekvz wrote: post #48

Comming from a country where nucler power is nowhere near the radar, what is the case against nuclear power? it seems such a nobrainer for me to use

Extreme cost (money and time) to get it built

Difficulties in managing waste

20 years ago I was all for nuclear, then I looked at terrible projects in Europe, like in the Finland and the UK, and realised that it's too little too late. Europe can't build nuclear, so rather than trying to fight a losing battle for another 20 years, Europe should be massively investing in what it can do (offshore wind, tidal, solar, pumped hydro)

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#69

Post by epistasis »

cipher_system wrote: post #29
loufe wrote: post #4

What I find shockingly absent in this article is any commentary on budget and cost overruns. I'm definitely not anti-nuclear but it stands to reason that a comparison vs other forms of energy would've been wise to consider.

Something like this. The project started in 2000, construction began in 2005 and should have been completed in 2010. Original cost was 3 billion euro but landed on over 10 billion euro. It is the first nuclear reactor in Europe for 15 years so not much working experience or available sub contractors. Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that. If nuclear energy…

> Apparently, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia can build at a third of the cost and time of that.

When did Japan last build a nuclear reactor? I don't think any time recently.

South Korea used to be touted as a success at construction without massive overruns, but it turns out that it was largely a result or corruption and skimping on safety inspections:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/s-korea-jails-nuclear-work...

As for China and Russia, we don't really have much insight to what they are doing as far as safety. China is seems to be successful at large scale construction projects in a way that we can not replicate in the west, so perhaps their numbers are reasonable for construction costs.

> If nuclear energy should be considered, much more must be built more continuously.

We would need entirely new designs unlike what has been built in the past. Both France and the US have negative learning rates when building the same reactor design multiple times, and that was 50 years ago when construction was a much more effective part of our economies.

I do not believe that nuclear is a smart energy source to pursue given our modern production capabilities. There's a bevy of nuclear startups trying smaller reactors that might be able to constrain construction costs. But in the past these designs have been rejected because of the loss of economy of scale, as being too expensive per watt.

Of the potential carbon neutral energy sources of the future, nuclear is one of the e least practical. It may supply a tiny fraction of our future power, maybe 10%, but without a major revolution soon on construction, our aging reactors will be shut down at end of life without any way to build more of them.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#70

Post by bckr »

Juliate wrote: post #33
lostlogin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-nuclear crowd being successful might just be an alternate spin on the failure of the nuclear industry.

Or the actual spin/might of the fossil-extracted energy industry.

... which is in bed with the Russian oligarchy... who are expert in disinformation ...
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