
No new nuclear units will be built in US due to high cost: Exelon official - spenrose
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/041218-no-new-nuclear-units-will-be-built-in-us-due-to-high-cost-exelon-official
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PaulHoule
We've got to lose the steam turbine and switch to an indirect Brayton cycle if
there is any chance nuclear will be competitive with natural gas.

The bad economics of the nuclear steam turbine was what drove giantism, and in
turn, non-constructability. Back then the competition was the better steam
conditions in coal-fired plants, but now gas turbine power plants make coal
burners unaffordable.

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spenrose
If the existing nuclear units in the US can be kept operational despite the
economic challenges they face, and technology can be developed to store energy
generated by renewable technologies, which are currently intermittently
available, "then we won't need these [new nuclear units] at that point," Von
Hoene said. "And we won't build them because they'll be too expensive." ...
Von Hoene's stance includes so-called small modular reactors, or SMRs, and
advanced designs, he said.

"Right now, the costs on the SMRs, in part because of the size and in part
because of the security that's associated with any nuclear plant, are
prohibitive," Von Hoene said.

"It's possible that that would evolve over time, and we're involved in looking
at that technology," Von Hoene said. "Right now they're prohibitively
expensive."

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heyjudy
Insurance, NRC and NIMBY's are the biggest obstacles.

Lower pressure, molten-salt, smaller reactors like DMSR/MSRE @ ORNL and Taylor
Wilson proposed with smaller, mass-manufactured reactors with
scram/reprocessing pools beneath them would be superior to complex, one-of,
inherently riskier, high-pressure *WR.

Disclaimer: I used to work in the nuclear industry in the US until it dried
up. Our computer hostnames were based on The Simpsons' characters.

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mimixco
Hallelujah

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mimixco
I've noticed that any anti-nuclear comments on HN get downvoted. Hmmm... For
my pro-nuke friends, I highly recommend "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer" by
Helen Caldicott. If anyone can find fault with her research, I'd like to know
about it.

[https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Power-Answer-Helen-
Caldicott/...](https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Power-Answer-Helen-
Caldicott/dp/1595582134)

