
China to the Rescue of Nuclear Power? - spenrose
https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/871/china-rescue
======
spenrose
"Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially,
the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the
government, see China's nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems
affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn't
want it."

~~~
The_rationalist
The technology is too expensive is utter nonsense. Nuclear is maybe the most
cost effective energy source humanity has, France win tons of money by selling
exceeding energy production to e.g germany.

~~~
spenrose
This thread has multiple links to nuclear professionals' on-the-record
statements that cost is a problem:

[https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656](https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656)

~~~
The_rationalist
I just spent the day reading about the economics of nuclear.

Long answer short: Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries which
have direct fossil reserves.

Nuclear is cost competitive but is an ultra long term investment (60/100 years
lifespan for a power plant) And the construction cost is huge.

A fascinating thing to note is that today New power plants cost between 4000
and 5000 $ per KWe. As science and experience improve you would expect like
everywhere else, for prices to go down. But it's the reverse, in 1960s power
plants had a cost of 1500$ per KWe!!! This is sad and mostly explained by
overengeenered security specifications. If we could make again such efficiency
today, nuclear would be by FAR the cheapest energy source.

Still, Chinese and South Korea achieve 3000$ per KWe efficiency (making it for
them the cheapest energy source by a significant amount) And 2 new promising
reactor designs target sub 2500$ per KWe.

Among future reactor designs, they can have some of those advantages: Less or
no wastes. Guaranted safety (auto shutdown by design) Ability to desalinate
water or produce hydrogen for free Ability to use thorium making nuclear
almost a renewable energy source (enough for 2000 years of energy supply for
all humanity) And potential costs savings: Less employee (700 per power plant
is a valid number today) More efficiency: from 33% to 45%

Source for many things: [https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
library/economic-a...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx)

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
> Long answer short: Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries
> which have direct fossil reserves.

That doesn't make sense: Countries that have reserves can sell them at the
exact price that countries without pay. The comparison with nuclear cannot
logically be different for those two cases.

~~~
Armisael16
Transport costs drive up the price for non-producing buyers.

Also, producer reduce supply when they use their own product, which pushes
prices up and reduces the difference in costs for the fuel (non-producers also
drive up the price a when they buy, but that doesn’t help them).

I doubt either of those effects is particularly significant, but they aren’t
nothing.

------
zazagura
Fukushima destroyed nuclear energy.

If the Japanese, with their image of professionalism, smartness, ultra
advanced technology, and total dedication to their job failed so spectacularly
to manage a plant, nobody will believe any safety promise anymore, at least in
places where people are asked about it (ie: not China)

Now add the Chernobyl TV series on top, it will be replayed and memefied
everywhere a plant is proposed.

Of course, this being HN, I welcome the incomming ban.

~~~
liability
> _" If the Japanese, with their image of professionalism, smartness, ultra
> advanced technology, and total dedication to their job"_

You're just cherrypicking positive stereotypes while ignoring negative
stereotypes relevant to the matter, such as the trait of not making waves with
your superiors and papering over problems to avoid embarrassment. These themes
are explored in _Shin Godzilla_ , which was a huge commercial success in
Japan, undoubtedly because the Japanese public recognized some truth in how
the movie depicted government incompetence in Japan.

~~~
cladari
In Japan they shut down each plant yearly for inspection. Everywhere else it's
done on the refueling cycle. The plant I worked at was on a two year cycle so
each year one of the two plants shut down for about an 8 week refuel/overhaul
outage.

~~~
liability
That's well and good, but an inspection is only as good as the inspectors and
workers are honest and _feel_ empowered to shut the whole deal down.

It's one thing to implement and andon cord, but it's quite another to get
workers to actually use it.

~~~
olivermarks
'the Japanese, with their image of professionalism, smartness, ultra advanced
technology, and total dedication to their job'

1 The plants were antiquated 1970's US GE equipment
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

2 Japanese business culture is very deferential and top down. The amount of
lying and covers ups around the Fukushima disaster was and is horrifying.
Having worked for Sony I can say that there is an awful lot of dead wood in
Japanese class system culture just as there is in the English class system,
and that is not a healthy way to run something potential deadly on a global
scale. I'm on the fence about nuclear power largely because of the above. It's
not the technology, it's human and bureaucratic fallibility and greed that is
the weak link

~~~
someguydave
That's fair enough but shouldn't you have the same hesitancy about say, solar
panel production or coal mining or oil production or wind farm installation
and maintenance? All of these can be just as deadly and potentially more
polluting.

------
bassman9000
Interesting none of the MSR efforts were mentioned

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-
next...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next-gen-
nuclear-reactor-program/)

 _In all, there are 700 nuclear engineers working on the molten-salt reactor
at SINAP, Xu said, a number that dwarfs other advanced-reactor research
programs around the world_

[https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-spending-
us3-3-b...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-spending-
us3-3-billion-on-molten-salt-nuclear-reactors-for-faster-aircraft-carriers-
and-in-flying-drones.html)

 _China will spend 22 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) on two prototype molten
salt nuclear reactors._

But, of course

 _The magazine of the global anti-nuclear community._

~~~
spenrose
The article says China's deployment plans are being derailed by cost and
popular attitudes towards nuclear. The cost of new tech in turn is mostly
driven by the chicken-and-egg problem of deployment. So you have to solve
deployment, which means you have to change attitudes.

~~~
bassman9000
And to start doing so, you develop passively-safe technologies (walk away),
where, by design, Chernobils can't happen.

~~~
The_rationalist
Chernobyl couldn't happen on today plants anyway. It was a succession of
ridiculous human errors, where e.g while stress testing the reactor, they
disabled the automatic recovery system. Power plants are now using computers
and they wouldn't allow such human stupidity.

~~~
bassman9000
Thus the _passive /walk away_.

Three Mile Island was a much better Western design, and still shit happened,
although with a fraction of the consequences. Fukishima, same.

I don't want a computer to be the failsafe. Computers fail. I want safe
systems by design. Like this

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8)

~~~
Gibbon1
At TMI the core suffered a partial meltdown. Downriver is Chesapeake Bay.

Lucky doesn't begin to cover what happened at TMI.

------
rayiner
If China beats us to cheap nuclear power, the American era will be over. You
can’t compete, economically or militarily, with cheap abundant renewable power
with wind farms and conservation.

------
tomohawk
Hopefully no-one will believe that the same government that built this
disaster waiting to happen:

[https://www.theepochtimes.com/experts-warn-of-chinas-
three-g...](https://www.theepochtimes.com/experts-warn-of-chinas-three-gorges-
dam-demise_2994235.html)

will be believable.

------
aussiegreenie
China the future of nuclear power, the same country that has not started a new
project in years and __ALL __current projects are at least 50% - 100% behind
schedule.

------
mrnobody_67
The Simpsons destroyed public perception of nuclear.

Homer Simpson as the safety inspector, green slime, and the three eye fish....

------
spenrose
My tweestorm discussing this topic, with citations:
[https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656](https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656)

------
sunkenvicar
Why build Gen 3 plants when they are on the cusp of commercializing Gen 4?

