I was hoping it would have been another 50 plus years for another one of these but it's only 20(see Ivan).
This one may even be more powerful than Ivan when it makes landfall in the Windward islands!
85% of nuclear reactors are built in under 10 years[1].
It also seems to me that if there were sufficient political willpower that improvements could be made here. It’s a bit like how anti-solar folks complain about the massive cost while ignoring that it is possible to improve costs.
22600 oil/gas wells drilled in 2022 in the US [1]. Fervo is proposing to do ~20 MW per injector/producer pair [2][3].
that's 11000 potential pairs per year x 10 years = 110000 pairs = 2200000 MW = 2200 GW. total US usage is 4 trillion kWh for 2022 [4], which is 456 GW averaged over the whole year.
so in the 10 years that it takes to build 85% of nuclear reactors, the oil/gas industry could drill enough geothermal wells to satisfy 4x the electricity requirements of the entire US.
Companies can always site next to an existing power plant. Valuing existing assets more highly can certainly help with filling the construction pipeline.
The following video puts nuclear electricity prices up at just under 100 USD/MWh for those who must have power.
Baseload power producers ceased to be relevant decades ago. The nuclear industry has coopted the term because they know they can’t compete on cost.
With storage now coming online in large enough quantities to meaningfully affect the grid the window of opportunity for nuclear energy has passed. It had a chance if the reactors started in the 2000s had delivered on time and on budget. They did not deliver.
Baseload power is still very much relevant. People will not tolerate power outages when it's cloudy. Yes, storage has advanced, but it's nowhere near the capacity that's needed. If it were, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It's far from the capacity of existing nuclear power supplies, right now - much less what is needed.
Given your answer it does not seem like you opened the linked article. Storage in California is supplying the equivalent to 4-6 nuclear reactors during the evening peaks. They are supplying nuclear scale level energy. We are having this discussion because a nuclear energy startup sees their window of opportunity vanish.
Baseload on the demand side still exists. Baseload powerplants not so much.
Look at the rate California is installing storage. Given the current rate, in 20 years time when what we install today reaches EOL, California will have 10 hours of storage during the summer peak.
When simulating the Australian grid with 5 hours of storage at mean power levels that leads to 99% reliability. [1]
A nuclear plant to solve the last 1% is a non-starter.
Of course we also do not only rely on storage, there is also:
- Large grid to decouple weather patterns
- Demand response
People already get on hourly contracts and schedule car charging for when it is cheap. The next step is automating it and making it more streamlined.
Some companies already support chargers which integrate with the pricing, they can even give you money back through demand response.
It's worth noting that California is one of the wealthiest regions in the world, yet it faces extremely high electricity bills to achieve its goals.
On the other hand, nuclear power is criticized while France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy, enjoys some of the lowest electricity rates in Europe.
How can you apply California's model to poorer countries when even California hasn't fully decarbonized? France, on the other hand, achieved significant decarbonization decades ago.
It's ironic that people like you see the fight against climate change as an opportunity to attack nuclear power. Be honest about your intentions.
Mostly based on the huge payouts for forest fires and bankruptcy of PG&E.
Until they had the highest rates in Europe when their nuclear energy did not deliver. [1] Currently they are completely unable to construct any new nuclear power given the outcome of Flamanville 3 [2] and cost escalations of their upcoming reactors [3], before they have even started building. The future for the French nuclear industry is looking incredibly bleak.
Relying on data from the 50-80s to "show" that nuclear is viable today, and also only looking at the reactor and not the entire plant, is essentially lying with statistics.
Have a look at all projects in the west in the past 20 years. They've either been cancelled or taken 20+ years from announcement to commercial operation.
Given the extreme costs of and lengthy construction timelines of modern nuclear power investing in it today prolongs climate change.
> Until they had the highest rates in Europe when their nuclear energy did not deliver. [1] Currently they are completely unable to construct any new nuclear power given the outcome of Flamanville 3 [2] and cost escalations of their upcoming reactors [3], before they have even started building, the future for the French nuclear industry is looking incredibly bleak.
You are cherry-picking examples to support your argument, which is intellectually dishonest. For instance, if I took the construction time of the slowest wind farm and presented it as the norm, it would be equally misleading. I provide average and mean construction times, which are more representative of the overall picture.
> Have a look at all projects in the west in the past 20 years. They've either been cancelled or taken 20+ years from announcement until commercial operation.
This is another example of cherry-picking. Western countries have not invested in nuclear power on a large scale in recent decades. However, countries like South Korea and China, which have heavily invested in nuclear energy, have achieved much shorter construction times.
You mention statistics but fail to explain how building one nuclear plant per decade in the West represents any meaningful statistical evidence. It is misleading to generalize from such a small sample size.
> Given the extreme costs and lengthy construction timelines of modern nuclear power, investing in it today prolongs climate change.
Germany's Energiewende, which has cost 600 billion euros over 20 years, has not achieved significant decarbonization. Renewables remain the most heavily subsidized energy source in Europe.
To understand your position better, do you prioritize excluding nuclear power or achieving decarbonization?
South Korea was building until their corruptions scandals blew up the industry. They haven't been able to sign a single export agreement since. [1]
China has for every single passing year been reducing their nuclear targets in favor of renewables. They keep a toe in the nuclear business but it is not core to their energy strategy anymore. [2]
We can have a look at all reactors we have tried to construct in the past 20 years in the west. The French examples are the pretty picture.
Finished:
- Olkiluoto 3: Took 20 years.
- Flamanville 3: Incredible cost blow-out and delays.
- Vogtle: Laughably delayed and expensive.
Under construction:
- Hinkley Point C: Laughably delayed and expensive.
Cancelled after investment decision:
- Virgil C. Summer: The ratepayers are going to pay for this chaotic project for decades to come.
- Hanhikivi: Was apparently hard to certify a Russian reactor for western standards.
Cancelled before investment decision:
- NuScale: In the end it cost more than Vogtle in $/kW.
Planning limbo because no one can agree on the costs:
- Wylfa-Newydd
- Sizewell C
- Oldbury B
- Bradwell B
- Moorside
Early stage planning:
- 6 new EPR2s by EDF in France: Continuously getting more expensive.
Given this horrific outcome taking statistics from the 70s and saying and saying it has any relevance to the costs and timelines of nuclear power construction in modern advanced economies is just sticking your head in the sand.
Please compare Germany and South Korea then. South Korea, the modern poster child for nuclear power held up as the paragon to emulate. Stuck at 450 gCO2/kWh which is worse than even Germany.
21st century nuclear power does not deliver decarbonization. Renewables do.
You are citing individual cases that don't reflect the broader picture. The reactors you listed don't represent large-scale construction efforts like those seen decades ago.
Additionally, you mention costs as if they are the final cost to consumers. While Olkiluoto 3 was expensive to build, electricity bills in Finland are now stable and relatively low because of it. Over the long term, once the construction costs are repaid, it will be even more economical.
Regarding China, your point isn't clear. The fact remains that China is demonstrating the effectiveness of building multiple reactors in parallel, which is faster and cheaper. Building reactors sporadically, as France is doing with new technologies, is indeed slow and costly.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61927
As for Korea, your argument seems unrelated. I advocate for a mix of nuclear and renewables. Korea's current strategy lacks sufficient renewable energy, which is not ideal. I mentioned Korea specifically to highlight their nuclear power capabilities, not their overall decarbonization strategy. Both Korea and Germany show that decarbonization requires a mix of nuclear and renewable energy sources.
So, is your priority to exclude nuclear power, or to achieve decarbonization?
Incredible how every single reactor we have attempted to build in the west in the past 20 years are "individual cases" when you have to find a way to rationalize your own stand point.
Both the French and the American large-scale efforts ended in tears. Scale did not solve it.
> The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing
> By the mid-1970s, it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent.
> [...]
> The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.
> Regarding China, your point isn't clear. The fact remains that China is demonstrating the effectiveness of building multiple reactors in parallel, which is faster and cheaper.
Love how your link says "Continues rapid growth" about the Chinese nuclear program while the curve obviously is stagnating.
> While Olkiluoto 3 was expensive to build, electricity bills in Finland are now stable and relatively low because of it. Over the long term, once the construction costs are repaid, it will be even more economical.
So now we just ignore basic economics. You don't get anything for free in the world. Someone paid. In the case of OL3 the French paid for the majority of the cost.
Do you think anyone will sign a contract like OL3 again where the supplier is certain to make a loss?
Lets have a look at Denmark and South Australia then? 150 gCO2/kWh and rapidly declining. Why accept being stuck at 450 gCO2/kWh like South Korea simply because they build nuclear?
Because you don't really care about nuclear plants but understands that the discussion has shifted and now promote nuclear to prolong our reliance on fossil fuels.
> Because you don't really care about nuclear plants but understands that the discussion has shifted and now promote nuclear to prolong our reliance on fossil fuels.
This shows all your intellectual dishonesty.
I'm for any effective way to break down our dependency on fossil fuels. I support research and investment in any type of technology that can effectively help us achieve net-zero emissions. Unlike you, I don't ideologically exclude one technology over another. Excluding a technology only complicates things.
I am well aware of the limitations of both nuclear and renewable energy sources, but this is not a sensible reason to exclude either from the mix. There has never been a single solution to our energy problems, but rather a need for a balanced mix and compromises.
Considering that they’d filed the first application for a non-LWR in decades I don’t think they did that bad. Still I thought it was a waste that they went on and on about the risk of supervolcanos and never said what they would do if the sodium coolant caught on fire. (Not that hard to answer, necessarily as you can detect it, drain water if is involved, and put the fire out…. But you’ve got to have some answer for an SFR.)
For a data center operator that wants to maximize utilization and needs a lot of power, they might be willing to pay a premium for consistent on site power rather than dealing with intermittent sources or grid connection costs and battery backups.
That's where future markets come in. The producer won't get negative prices on shiny days. The consumer won't pay through the nose on rainy days. The marginal producer doesn't matter with a prenegotiated price.
This derisks both sides letting both of them build without worrying about the market moving against them and rendering their capital investments worthless.
In Sweden they install temporary chargers containing both a battery and charger along the route when it is spring break season and everyone heads north to ski.
This allows the grid infrastructure to be better utilized and provide more charging spots for the users.
The goalposts for "No uh, EVs will never work!!!" just continue to get moved.
Batteries are common even in permanent charger installations, because they enable use of cheaper off-peak electricity, and peak charging rates higher than the grid connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EonnioGJ5mo
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