Everyone knows about shrinkflation in the grocery store. Prices have risen about 20-80% over the last three years so product makers try to give you less for around the same price.
This shrinkflation is even worse for nuclear power plants. It used to be $2 billion for a 1000 megawatts of nuclear power plant in the USA. It is now $15 billion to 20 billion. The small modular reactor effort is basically applying shrinkflation to nuclear energy. Buy a 345 MW nuclear reactor for the price of an old 1100 MW nuclear reactor.
China National Nuclear Corp CNNNC.UL (CNNC) expects to start construction of its first Hualong Two, an advanced model of its third-generation power reactor, by 2024. Construction of the Hualong Two reactor will take four years to build, said Cao Shudong, CNNC vice general manager, at a nuclear forum in Beijing on Wednesday, instead of the average five years it takes for Hualong One units.
The US Vogtle AP1000 construction started in 2009 and completed in 2023. The project was originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016. It took about 14 years.
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How about just accepting that solar & wind power is economically superior to nuclear in most regions, almost carbon-neutral and the way to go?
The future breakthrough will be in cheap energy storage for renewable energy.
Nuclear energy is a dead end. Even fusion is a dead end, becuase it cannot benefit from economies of scale like the building & installation of millions of wind powerplants or millions of PV modules.
There are few areas where nuclear MAY have a green power niche; polar regions and Africa/SEA near the equator (too many clouds even for PV and too little wind for wind power to be economical).
https://globalwindatlas.info/en
https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
This means series production of floating nuclear powerplants may make sense for those regions.
https://www.investopedia.com/federal-subsidies-renewable-energy-doubled-since-2016-7568916
“Federal Subsidies for Renewable Energy More Than Doubled Since 2016
Tax spending on renewables accounts for more than 90% of total subsidies”
What is the overall US Energy strategy anyway?
Hard Call. Is it the top-down politics of somewhere like China with huge hordes of resources at their will, but when it comes down to it – they’re just Smart Sheep in a bloated bureaucracy. Free-Market entrepreneurialism may not be the best Utility transformation system either. Towns and Counties may need to make individual deals with Big Energy companies like they do with car fleets and computer systems. Who owns and maintains the major distribution networks anyway? Many regions have had to download and privatize a lot of existing infrastructure work to find savings – biggest hit on a municpality is legacy commitments (pensions, etc.) – shed that as best as they can.
There was a lot of problems with Vogtle. Building ap1000 in a to small of footprint. Using Bechtel and the way they hold up production and blame labor. Look them up on 3 mile island…they want quantities but then they have another crew take down work, then yet another crew puts it up again. It’s one way to play the time and materials card. Waiting until the end until the NRC is looking things over and not giving an IEEE class until it’s damn near built. They could have done better. I don’t see how we couldn’t build more large plants for less than Vogtle. But then again look at buying a house 25 years ago versus the same house today. The price is nowhere near the same.
I believe China can overcome tech hurdles of nuclear energy to make it safer and cheaper. It is the only country has enough engineers, money, political will and domestic demand to do this. Not only China but the world will got great benefit if China success.
Gov. regulations & money printing are destroying the economy – same as they have been for decades … so there is little surprise in this story.
A lot of the material used to build solar farms and wind turbines goes into building nuclear power plants. Steel and concrete are used in all three. So the ideal that inflation is only affecting nuclear is more “renewables only” cult propaganda. On a total “unrelated” note, Gregory B. Jaczko the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who voted against the opening of new nuclear plants and unilaterally blocked the Yucca Mountain Nuclear depository, went to work with antitechnology Luddite pieces of s*** to get all nuclear power ban. The Obama Administration left a fox to guard a henhouse and we’re blaming the hens for the red stains all over the henhouse. Perhaps we should be looking at the NRC’s practice of hiring members of Greenpeace for why nuclear power has been in decline.
Dude, that guy is off the NRC board since 2012. You can’t keep blaming this one guy after an entire decade of complete no show.
not just Jackzo but the others at NRC. Jackzo was just the most blatant.
The oil industry loves to secretly push nuclear over cheaper solar PV, and (NOT) whale killing wind because they know more delay means they win.
Common sense is that shipping kills whales.
In 2023, a candy bar costs $1.50.
$100,000/year is not a comfortable household income
Pickup trucks cost $50-$90k
The cost of a nuke plant has risen by similar proportion.
A society grows great when old men build nuke plants in whose power they shall never use.
Reliable power. Middle class jobs. Low CO2 emissions.
Our society doesn’t want to eat the costs associated with the learning curve. We’re about to lose the supply chain and knowledge retention yet again. I know a NuScale safety analyst that now does cyber security.
There’s no world where Natrium makes economic sense. Its a Bill Gates vanity project. If he was half the man Musk is then he would fund his own first of a kind reactor. But no Mr. Gates is wandering the halls of Congress with his cap in hand begging for government handouts.
Musk first rocket was founded by NASA. Tesla for a long time was only competitive because of government subsidies
Natrium reactors cannot ever compete with coal or gas. The only way they can make economic sense is if everything that produces power for less is penalized. It is relatively easy to determine the nth of a kind costs for reactors, even reactors with exotic coolants (Sodium) and extra expensive nuclear fuel.
Mr. Gates can prove us all wrong by funding the first of a kind by writing a check. Until he diverts 5% of his income to that all he is doing is burnishing his environmentalist credentials.