Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
1–10 of 205 posts
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#2This is great news. Although disappointing how long it took. Still hoping for a nuclear resurgence. Between this and all the EV factories coming online in GA, GA will have quite the impact on climate goals.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#3As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#4As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
The contractors aren't idiots. They got an extra 7 years and a 140% bonus.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#5As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
Are there any infrastructure projects that don't have cost overrun or finish on time in this country?
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#6As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
The contractors aren't idiots. They got an extra 7 years and a 140% bonus.
We're assuming cost-plus contract terms, then, I assume? :-)
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#7As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
We lost much of our nuclear engineering capability in the US, so in many ways contractors are "idiots" here and made many costly mistakes during construction. Many articles on this and how it lead to the Westinghouse bankruptcy. Sadly, there's only a handful of western-friendly firms in the world that can build a reactor, so hoping the expertise and lessons learned will be worthwhile for future projects.
Nuclear isn't necessarily the cheapest option for rates, but it's the best for base generation AND greenhouse gas emission.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#8Seven years late and $20 billion over budget. Slow clap.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#9I feel like the fact that this plant coming online will raise the rates for Georgia electricity is basically the death-knell of nuclear power, at least in it's current form of large central power plants[1].
By comparison, solar and wind seem like classic "worse is better." They don't run all the time, but they're cheap and relatively simple, if you screw up a unit then you get no power from that one unit, but the nature of the tech means each individual unit isn't very important, and failure means no power and maybe an eyesore, no catastrophic pollution.
One further consideration is the decentralized nature of renewables. As the war in Ukraine is showing us, for any country dependent on a small number of central power plants, those become extremely vulnerable weak points if your country is invaded, whereas a decentralized network of renewables is hardier and can degrade rather than hard fail.
I know the HN crowd loves big engineering, and that in theory all these problems could be solved with enough investment and practice building plants etc., but I think in the messy world of reality micro generation is going to swamp everything else in the very long run.
1: Perhaps the small modular nuclear reactors idea can eventually be proven out.
Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms
#10As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.
We lost much of our nuclear engineering capability in the US, so in many ways contractors are "idiots" here and made many costly mistakes during construction. Many articles on this and how it lead to the Westinghouse bankruptcy. Sadly, there's only a handful of western-friendly firms in the world that can build a reactor, so hoping the expertise and lessons learned will be worthwhile for future projects. Nuclear isn'…
This "loss of nuclear engineering capability" doesn't hold up when you see reactors build by the French having the same problems: overdue and over budget.
The French never stopped building reactors all over the world.
"Base generation" is an outdated concept. It can be replaced by storage and grid size for example.