morrisond wrote:

So if AP1000 production was scaled up where can the cost get too?

Unfortunately, the NEA/OECD does not yet have available an updated report for the "Full" cost of electricity based on 2020 data and projections (Data from the IEA is heavily used in these reports)

They have issued separate reports for both the cost of generation (cost out of the generating equipment) and a separate report for electrical system cost related to various amounts of Variable Renewable Energy (solar and wind), which presents the data as the "overall electrical system cost" for various amounts of VRE sources (and not the cost per MWh or kWh of VRE).

I provided a link to the 2018 full cost NEA/OECD report above in one of my long posts, and it identified that the transmission system cost for base-loaded nuclear plants as $0.002/kWh, and if I recall correctly an average of $0.037/kWh for utility scale solar PV.

Here is the link for the December 9, 2020 cost of generation of the various forms of power plants.

https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_51110/ ... 20-edition

I direct you to page 14 which shows the minimum to maximum cost as a vertical bar with a filled in box for the 2nd quarter and 3rd quarter cost - so you can see the average cost.

My eyesight estimate is that the Average cost of new construction nuclear base-load plants is about $69/MWh (or $0.069/kwh) with the upper 3rd quarter at about $75/MWh (or $0.075/kwh). Adding $0.002 transmission and system cost to that produces a 3rd quarter range of $0.071 - $0.077/kWh).

If they really ramp it up... I see $50/MWh ($0.05 kWh) + transmission system cost.

Please note the range on Utility scale PV, wind (onshore and offshore) and even geothermal. Keep in mind these values do not include the electrical transmission and system cost of delivering the power to the distribution system the customer is on.

Page 15 has a chart showing differences in cost in various parts of the world for key generation technologies. Feel free to read the rest of the report on how they got these numbers, if you wish.


For more enlightening reading - here is the link to what we know about building the modern generation of large base-load nuclear power plants; which includes a lot of follies and lessons learned of both Europe's EPR and the USA AP1000's, with comparisons to Japan, Korea, and China.

https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_30653/ ... of-nuclear

I note that I believe there are currently about 6 NRC approved plant sites in the USA for the AP1000 at this point (the industry had plans... for a rebirth and the new NRC process in the 2000's allowed companies to file for and get a Site License and Operating License as long as the plant was built as designed and the operators were trained to the standards in the application permit).

I also believe it would be possible for a new owner and management team to take possession of the 2 partially finished AP1000's and finish them. That would likely take a year of so of organizing paperwork and restarting the regulatory process. The existing owners would have to sell at likely about 10% of what they put into it (I'm sure they would like some money back from them). But, they are the ones who mismanaged it and tried to cover that up [they actually knew things were not going well - hired a consultant to help them sort things out and get the project back on track - and then rejected implementing any of the consultants recommendation to regain control of the project, and hid that report from the regulators. When a major supplier went bankrupt they approached the state regulator for more $... and in the process the regulators found out about that report and how the management team did nothing to regain control of the project and hid the report from them. The ending was not pretty for that management team and the owner companies involved. The state regulator said that if they had told them about the report and implemented the recommendations to regain control of the project - that they would have been approved for more $ as that would have shown effective project management. But given the situation they lost all faith in the owners and management team]. The same vendor bankruptcy affected Vogtle 3&4 which added over a $Billion to the final cost for a different set of utilities. A different state regulator found that the Vogtle management team had been properly managing the project and had implemented changes when identified (and were actually following a reasonable schedule). Those lessons don't seem to be listed in the report I linked to; but, I assure you that everyone in nuclear construction in the USA knows about it.

I hope you find this information an appropriate answer to your question.

I believe that in the USA that it would take 12-18 months to bid and sign the appropriate documents to start construction at an already licensed site, and the plant should be done in about 7 years given he lessons learned with the AP1000. This could shrink to 5 years if they had per-ordered key major components a 2 years earlier (which is what happened on the 4 USA AP1000 Plants: The US Nuclear industry thought they would be building 10, if not 20, new AP1000's by now and a modest set of key long lead components were ordered early).

Have a great day,

LWR reactors are very inefficient compared to Gen IV designs, all of which have been tested in one form or another since the early 1950's. LWR's are wasteful of fuel with extremely low burnup and extremely long-lived waste. Fast reactors (and high-temp thermal reactors) are much more efficient, particularly for hydrogen production, can breed their own fuel at a rate greater than fuel usage, and the waste half-life is 1/10 as long. There is enough nuclear fuel in existence to power the planet for 300 years (in combination with some wind and solar) without any further mining required assuming breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing are utilized. Thermal efficiency for LWR's is around 30%. Breeders and molten salt fast reactors can push that to 45%. Brayton cycle helium gas turbines where the reactor core replaces the combustor (nuclear turbojet in a box: HolosGen, NuGen) and using a rankine bottoming cycle can push that to the 60% range with turbine inlet temps in the 850 C range. In theory, utilizing turbine inlet temps in excess of 1650 C (current materials limit for industrial/aviation gas turbines), net efficiency can hit 80% in a hybrid combined cycle. Balance of plant is eliminated as well. This type of fission power plant will be able to compete effectively with fusion, whenever it becomes commercially viable. A fusion reactor cannot be incorporated into a direct brayton cycle gas turbine. It will have to be rankine and requires balance of plant.

Right now the best bet is on Gen IV designs in the 300 MW or less size category. Modular reactors can be built much faster than plants like the AP1000.

Biggest bottleneck for nuclear right now is the NRC (working on it) and nuclear power's public relations issue. Fact of the matter is that nuclear fission is FAR safer per kilowatt hour of energy produced than any fossil fuels and in many cases, renewables as well.

744SPX wrote:

Biggest bottleneck for nuclear right now is the NRC (working on it) and nuclear power's public relations issue. Fact of the matter is that nuclear fission is FAR safer per kilowatt hour of energy produced than any fossil fuels and in many cases, renewables as well.

Actually not: The NRC changed their process to certify reactor designs, certify sites in advance, and can issue a combines operating license with a site certification together to allow construction and operation of a certified reactor design

Here is the base link that I get most of the following information from: https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors.html

The following plant designs are fully certified for construction and use in the USA: BWR = Boiling Water Reactor. PWR = Pressurized Water Reactor - with steam generators separate from the reactor)

GE ABWR (Advanced BWR)
Korea Electric APR1400 (PWR)
Westinghouse System 80+ (PWR)
Westinghouse AP600 (PWR)
Westinghouse AP1000 (PWR)
GE ESBWR (Economic Simplified BWR)
NuScale SMR (PWR) SMR+Small Modular Reactor: 50 MW

Several others are in process or have been suspended. The NuScale NMP-20 is under review (77 MW).

The following nuclear plant sites have been pre-certified for use using a certified nuclear plant design with allowance for pre-constuction activities (grading, roads, support buildings, etc.) (A Nuclear Unit Construction and Operation license has not yet been issued).

Clinton
Grand Gulf
North Anna
Vogtle (this was prior to the COL being issued: units are under construction)
PSEG (site does not yet have a name)
Cinch River

The Following sites obtained combined construction and operating licenses (COL), with full authority to start nuclear plant construction whenever the utility desires

Fermi Unit 3 GE ESBWR
North Anna Unit 3 ESBWR
Vogtle Units 3& 4 AP1000 (Under Construction - should start within next 2 years)
William States Lee Unit 1&2 AP1000
Turkey Point Units 6&7 AP1000

There are 4 other AP1000 and 2 APWR Construction and operation licenses that were issued, and the utility requested the NRC terminate them. However, they could be reactivated fairly quickly as all the reviews and approvals were completed. Note that it cost money to keep a COL open. Of course the 2 VC Summers AP1000 are about 2/3 complete. I am sure that they closed the project in such a way to maintain the certifications and QA status of what was installed. It would be tossing away $Billions to not do that (and there were some 1980-1990 era plants that had construction suspended and were later finished, and the TVA is planning to finish Bellefonte Units 1&2 - which would be licensed for operations under the old rules after construction is completed).

So 4 AP1000's and 2 ESBWR's could be under construction at any time - as they are fully approved by the NRC.

It would be a fairly trivial change for a utility to request that a COL be changed from say an ESBWR to an AP1000 or the NuScale SMR. That's likely to only take a few months of paperwork. There is really not much to review as the reactor, its systems, and the controls have already been certified, and the site has already been certified as appropriate for a nuclear plant.

I personally doubt that any ABWRs or ESBWR's will be built in the USA. The reason none were started in the US is that GE could not come up with an estimate for construction cost to be able to start signing contracts.

There are a number of open (currently paused) Construction and Operating Licenses (COLs) in process. Some of these were within a few months of completion when they were suspended. Others needed another year or so. It would take minimal effort to restart these.

The proposed site for the NuScale SMR has not yet been submitted for review or a Construction and Operation License (COL). That will likely take a few years to complete its review once it is submitted. They do need to identify what nuclear unit they are planning to build in the application papers and the NuScale SMR was just certified . I note that the Cinch River early site permit was for SMR's; although an addendum would have to be reviewed and approved once TVA identifies which SMR they intend to install.

So there really is not much of a hold-up at the NRC. With appropriate push from the Federal Government to start building nuclear power plants for green energy purposes... Things can get going as fast as several companies can negotiate the construction contracts (and the AP1000 costs are now known). Within 2-3 years we could have sites with COLs for another 10-12 units re-approved or finish the suspended review and approval process.

Have a great day,

744SPX wrote:

LWR reactors are very inefficient compared to Gen IV designs, all of which have been tested in one form or another since the early 1950's. LWR's are wasteful of fuel with extremely low burnup and extremely long-lived waste. Fast reactors (and high-temp thermal reactors) are much more efficient, particularly for hydrogen production, can breed their own fuel at a rate greater than fuel usage, and the waste half-life is 1/10 as long. There is enough nuclear fuel in existence to power the planet for 300 years (in combination with some wind and solar) without any further mining required assuming breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing are utilized. Thermal efficiency for LWR's is around 30%. Breeders and molten salt fast reactors can push that to 45%. Brayton cycle helium gas turbines where the reactor core replaces the combustor (nuclear turbojet in a box: HolosGen, NuGen) and using a rankine bottoming cycle can push that to the 60% range with turbine inlet temps in the 850 C range. In theory, utilizing turbine inlet temps in excess of 1650 C (current materials limit for industrial/aviation gas turbines), net efficiency can hit 80% in a hybrid combined cycle. Balance of plant is eliminated as well. This type of fission power plant will be able to compete effectively with fusion, whenever it becomes commercially viable. A fusion reactor cannot be incorporated into a direct brayton cycle gas turbine. It will have to be rankine and requires balance of plant.

Right now the best bet is on Gen IV designs in the 300 MW or less size category. Modular reactors can be built much faster than plants like the AP1000.

You are right in theory about the general efficiency increase (except that most modern LWRs operate at 33% efficiency) These Gen IV need to be built and tested at a utility scale.

There were a series of high temperature gas cooled utility power reactors built in both the UK and at least 1 in the USA in the 1960's. They did not fair well with long term reliability. Lots of issues and the USA one was shut down very early in its life due to all the problems (none of which were experienced in the test reactors). So your claims about how well this has been tested and for how long are totally hollow.

Things don't always work as they do in the small test reactors when you scale things up. That showed up in the LWR's as well as the high temperature gas reactors.

The 1st generation of LWR power reactors were 50 - 75 MW, and they ran into issues that had not occurred in the test reactors. I've heard that there were a few 250-300 MW sized ones as well. Then 500-600 MW was the major initial power plant units of the late 1960's and early 1970's (I worked in a dual 600 MW Westinghouse Units, and another single unit Westinghouse plant). A decade+ after they got the bugs worked out at 600 MW they moved to 900 MW units. Then 1000 - 1200 MW another decade+ after that. None are built in the USA, but 1400 - 1500 MW nuclear units exist in other countries.

Proven Gen IV reactors in the 200-300 MW size are likely 30+ years away. I doubt you will see even the small utility scale Test Plant built within at least 8 years in the Western World. I wish that were not so. But, that's were it is. New Nuclear moves slow for a reason... Lots of very very costly lessons learned.

Fuel recycling started off as very problematic as well... although at this point we have finally figured out how to do it (The French and English are likely the lead experts in that-after 40-50 years of experience). You might want to read about the disasters that the early reprocessing plants were. Expensive to operate and extraordinarily expensive to clean up. I don't think we will se a USA reprocessing plant for decades, if ever. They are still cleaning up the mess from the bomb material plants (and all kinds of interesting failed stuff is buried in Idaho) and no one I've talked to in the US seems interesting in creating such messes again, and a reprocessing plant is inherently messy.

To restate my key thesis: We need to start building plants now for real power generation if we are going to be in a position a decade from now to make a positive dent in the environmental issues and support electric cars and possibly liquid H2 production for aircraft and vehicle fuel. Right now that only modern Western Reactor that we know how much it cost and how fast to build it is the AP1000. Designs that have not yet been tested even in their small modules much less proven to be long term reliable are not an immediate solution. They might be a solution in 30-50 years (and I'll bet that half of them don't work out).

Have a great day,

2175301 wrote:

744SPX wrote:

Biggest bottleneck for nuclear right now is the NRC (working on it) and nuclear power's public relations issue. Fact of the matter is that nuclear fission is FAR safer per kilowatt hour of energy produced than any fossil fuels and in many cases, renewables as well.

Actually not: The NRC changed their process to certify reactor designs, certify sites in advance, and can issue a combines operating license with a site certification together to allow construction and operation of a certified reactor design

Here is the base link that I get most of the following information from: https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors.html

The following plant designs are fully certified for construction and use in the USA: BWR = Boiling Water Reactor. PWR = Pressurized Water Reactor - with steam generators separate from the reactor)

GE ABWR (Advanced BWR)
Korea Electric APR1400 (PWR)
Westinghouse System 80+ (PWR)
Westinghouse AP600 (PWR)
Westinghouse AP1000 (PWR)
GE ESBWR (Economic Simplified BWR)
NuScale SMR (PWR) SMR+Small Modular Reactor: 50 MW

Several others are in process or have been suspended. The NuScale NMP-20 is under review (77 MW).

The following nuclear plant sites have been pre-certified for use using a certified nuclear plant design with allowance for pre-constuction activities (grading, roads, support buildings, etc.) (A Nuclear Unit Construction and Operation license has not yet been issued).

Clinton
Grand Gulf
North Anna
Vogtle (this was prior to the COL being issued: units are under construction)
PSEG (site does not yet have a name)
Cinch River

The Following sites obtained combined construction and operating licenses (COL), with full authority to start nuclear plant construction whenever the utility desires

Fermi Unit 3 GE ESBWR
North Anna Unit 3 ESBWR
Vogtle Units 3& 4 AP1000 (Under Construction - should start within next 2 years)
William States Lee Unit 1&2 AP1000
Turkey Point Units 6&7 AP1000

There are 4 other AP1000 and 2 APWR Construction and operation licenses that were issued, and the utility requested the NRC terminate them. However, they could be reactivated fairly quickly as all the reviews and approvals were completed. Note that it cost money to keep a COL open. Of course the 2 VC Summers AP1000 are about 2/3 complete. I am sure that they closed the project in such a way to maintain the certifications and QA status of what was installed. It would be tossing away $Billions to not do that (and there were some 1980-1990 era plants that had construction suspended and were later finished, and the TVA is planning to finish Bellefonte Units 1&2 - which would be licensed for operations under the old rules after construction is completed).

So 4 AP1000's and 2 ESBWR's could be under construction at any time - as they are fully approved by the NRC.

It would be a fairly trivial change for a utility to request that a COL be changed from say an ESBWR to an AP1000 or the NuScale SMR. That's likely to only take a few months of paperwork. There is really not much to review as the reactor, its systems, and the controls have already been certified, and the site has already been certified as appropriate for a nuclear plant.

I personally doubt that any ABWRs or ESBWR's will be built in the USA. The reason none were started in the US is that GE could not come up with an estimate for construction cost to be able to start signing contracts.

There are a number of open (currently paused) Construction and Operating Licenses (COLs) in process. Some of these were within a few months of completion when they were suspended. Others needed another year or so. It would take minimal effort to restart these.

The proposed site for the NuScale SMR has not yet been submitted for review or a Construction and Operation License (COL). That will likely take a few years to complete its review once it is submitted. They do need to identify what nuclear unit they are planning to build in the application papers and the NuScale SMR was just certified . I note that the Cinch River early site permit was for SMR's; although an addendum would have to be reviewed and approved once TVA identifies which SMR they intend to install.

So there really is not much of a hold-up at the NRC. With appropriate push from the Federal Government to start building nuclear power plants for green energy purposes... Things can get going as fast as several companies can negotiate the construction contracts (and the AP1000 costs are now known). Within 2-3 years we could have sites with COLs for another 10-12 units re-approved or finish the suspended review and approval process.

Have a great day,

The main problem with nuclear today is cost, not environmental concerns. The old reactors were build with enormous subsidies and the new reactors are still more expensive, mainly because of increased security. Most reactors build in the western world as it is have enormous cost overruns on top of being expensive to beginn with.
Nuclear will drop out because of being uneconomical to build, Subsidies could change that picture. Many companies that once produced reactors have given up.

2175301 wrote:

744SPX wrote:

LWR reactors are very inefficient compared to Gen IV designs, all of which have been tested in one form or another since the early 1950's. LWR's are wasteful of fuel with extremely low burnup and extremely long-lived waste. Fast reactors (and high-temp thermal reactors) are much more efficient, particularly for hydrogen production, can breed their own fuel at a rate greater than fuel usage, and the waste half-life is 1/10 as long. There is enough nuclear fuel in existence to power the planet for 300 years (in combination with some wind and solar) without any further mining required assuming breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing are utilized. Thermal efficiency for LWR's is around 30%. Breeders and molten salt fast reactors can push that to 45%. Brayton cycle helium gas turbines where the reactor core replaces the combustor (nuclear turbojet in a box: HolosGen, NuGen) and using a rankine bottoming cycle can push that to the 60% range with turbine inlet temps in the 850 C range. In theory, utilizing turbine inlet temps in excess of 1650 C (current materials limit for industrial/aviation gas turbines), net efficiency can hit 80% in a hybrid combined cycle. Balance of plant is eliminated as well. This type of fission power plant will be able to compete effectively with fusion, whenever it becomes commercially viable. A fusion reactor cannot be incorporated into a direct brayton cycle gas turbine. It will have to be rankine and requires balance of plant.

Right now the best bet is on Gen IV designs in the 300 MW or less size category. Modular reactors can be built much faster than plants like the AP1000.

You are right in theory about the general efficiency increase (except that most modern LWRs operate at 33% efficiency) These Gen IV need to be built and tested at a utility scale.

There were a series of high temperature gas cooled utility power reactors built in both the UK and at least 1 in the USA in the 1960's. They did not fair well with long term reliability. Lots of issues and the USA one was shut down very early in its life due to all the problems (none of which were experienced in the test reactors). So your claims about how well this has been tested and for how long are totally hollow.

Things don't always work as they do in the small test reactors when you scale things up. That showed up in the LWR's as well as the high temperature gas reactors.

The 1st generation of LWR power reactors were 50 - 75 MW, and they ran into issues that had not occurred in the test reactors. I've heard that there were a few 250-300 MW sized ones as well. Then 500-600 MW was the major initial power plant units of the late 1960's and early 1970's (I worked in a dual 600 MW Westinghouse Units, and another single unit Westinghouse plant). A decade+ after they got the bugs worked out at 600 MW they moved to 900 MW units. Then 1000 - 1200 MW another decade+ after that. None are built in the USA, but 1400 - 1500 MW nuclear units exist in other countries.

Proven Gen IV reactors in the 200-300 MW size are likely 30+ years away. I doubt you will see even the small utility scale Test Plant built within at least 8 years in the Western World. I wish that were not so. But, that's were it is. New Nuclear moves slow for a reason... Lots of very very costly lessons learned.

Fuel recycling started off as very problematic as well... although at this point we have finally figured out how to do it (The French and English are likely the lead experts in that-after 40-50 years of experience). You might want to read about the disasters that the early reprocessing plants were. Expensive to operate and extraordinarily expensive to clean up. I don't think we will se a USA reprocessing plant for decades, if ever. They are still cleaning up the mess from the bomb material plants (and all kinds of interesting failed stuff is buried in Idaho) and no one I've talked to in the US seems interesting in creating such messes again, and a reprocessing plant is inherently messy.

To restate my key thesis: We need to start building plants now for real power generation if we are going to be in a position a decade from now to make a positive dent in the environmental issues and support electric cars and possibly liquid H2 production for aircraft and vehicle fuel. Right now that only modern Western Reactor that we know how much it cost and how fast to build it is the AP1000. Designs that have not yet been tested even in their small modules much less proven to be long term reliable are not an immediate solution. They might be a solution in 30-50 years (and I'll bet that half of them don't work out).

Have a great day,

Great information.

So if one wanted to build an AP1000 today - what is the actual dollar cost of construction for the whole thing. How much money does one need in total?

mjoelnir wrote:

The main problem with nuclear today is cost, not environmental concerns. The old reactors were build with enormous subsidies and the new reactors are still more expensive, mainly because of increased security. Most reactors build in the western world as it is have enormous cost overruns on top of being expensive to beginn with.
Nuclear will drop out because of being uneconomical to build, Subsidies could change that picture. Many companies that once produced reactors have given up.

You are repeating two long disproved myths.

1) The vast majority of the US and Europe Nuclear Power plants were built without goverment subsidies, other than the fact that goverment subsidies built the base uranium processing facility as part of the atomic bomb projects, and goverment subsidies built test reactors and helped build the first commercial example reactors.

2) Nuclear power plants are being built all over the world as they are more cost effective than the alternates; and those cost include financing for eventual decommissioning of the plants. If you would download the various reports listed above you will learn about the actual cost to build new generation of all kinds of different types of power generation (including renewables). Please go back to my very long post refuting $0.02 /kWh solar PV for the 2018 report on the "Full Cost" of power generation report as it explains what it really cost to build and deliver power to the end customers.

I've provided links and documents for my claims based on cost assembled worldwide by international organizations.

Have a great day,

morrisond wrote:

So if one wanted to build an AP1000 today - what is the actual dollar cost of construction for the whole thing. How much money does one need in total?

That's a good question. If you look at the cost of cost reported in "Reducing the Cost of Nuclear Construction" report you will see two sets of interesting numbers on cost for construction per kWe of the plants (the 'e' indicates electrical output of the power plant, Reactors are usually rated in MWt with the t indicating thermal power):

China built the 1st 2 at an average cost of $3.154 Billion per 1000 MWe plant. Labor in China is much less than the US or Europe, and honestly China has lower safety and certification standards than the US and Europe which also lowered cost on the rest of the plant outside the nuclear core (which was built to Westinghouse NRC approved Standards).

Vogtle in the USA is finishing their 1st 2 units with an estimated cost of $9.6 Billion per 1117 MWe plant (notice how Vogtle got 117 more MWe from the exact same nuclear core as the Chinese: that's what you can do if you don't reduce standards on the rest of the plant).

Both sets of these numbers represent the initial First and Second of kind reactors and plants which have the highest cost. The next set of plants should have lower cost if you use the people and lessons learned from the initial plants.

Now one of the follies in the USA was that all the contractors signed fixed priced contracts based on the scope of work they thought they saw. Then they sued each other in court causing substantial delay when there were scope changes because you don't know what you don't know on 1st of a kind plants and when other conflicts in the contracts came up (suing is after all the American way). This likely added at least $2 Billion to each plant as one of the biggest cost to a nuclear power plant is the interest on the construction loan: delays cost substantial money.

With the bankruptcy of a major supplier and review of the entire process by the regulators... The contracts got changed to a process that you just move on and continue construction (to minimize cost and delays) and there is a mechanism to resolve these issues quickly that does not affect the actual construction.

If we were to start new AP1000's in the USA this year I'm estimating that the cost would most likely be in the $6 Billion per plant, and might drop to $5Billion if they actually line things up right.

I do know that this is an area of intense discussion among various parties - and no one is really saying where they think they are at.

Note also that all AP1000 plants built have been built as dual unit sites (2 power plants next to each other that share support staff). All approved AP1000 sites and COL's are for dual unit sites. Most of the other plant COLs applied for and granted were for single unit BWR's. Not sure how that works out economically as the onsite engineering, maintenance, security, and support staff is only slightly larger for a dual unit plant than for a single unit site.

Have a great day,

2175301 wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

The main problem with nuclear today is cost, not environmental concerns. The old reactors were build with enormous subsidies and the new reactors are still more expensive, mainly because of increased security. Most reactors build in the western world as it is have enormous cost overruns on top of being expensive to beginn with.
Nuclear will drop out because of being uneconomical to build, Subsidies could change that picture. Many companies that once produced reactors have given up.

You are repeating two long disproved myths.

1) The vast majority of the US and Europe Nuclear Power plants were built without goverment subsidies, other than the fact that goverment subsidies built the base uranium processing facility as part of the atomic bomb projects, and goverment subsidies built test reactors and helped build the first commercial example reactors.

2) Nuclear power plants are being built all over the world as they are more cost effective than the alternates; and those cost include financing for eventual decommissioning of the plants. If you would download the various reports listed above you will learn about the actual cost to build new generation of all kinds of different types of power generation (including renewables). Please go back to my very long post refuting $0.02 /kWh solar PV for the 2018 report on the "Full Cost" of power generation report as it explains what it really cost to build and deliver power to the end customers.

I've provided links and documents for my claims based on cost assembled worldwide by international organizations.

Have a great day,

On the subsidies we will not agree. To my information nuclear power got around 150 billion USD for development of nuclear power most of it in the early years when one dollar was several times the worth it has today. Further subsidies have been given through tax exemptions. I talk about the USA only.

Point to one real world nuclear power project in the western world that is competitive with gas or wind regarding cost. There is the project in Finland, Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, projected to cost 3 billion EUR and to go on line in 2009, the cost are up to 8,5 billion EUR and is now projected to go on line in 2022.
Or take the Hinkley Point C, the government guaranteed price is 92.5 GBP per MWh, well above the current whole sale guaranteed price for new wind projects at about 45 GBP per MWh, the projects auctioned of to the lowest bidder in regards to cost.

I do not talk about advertisements from the nuclear power industry or some other unrealistic projections. Show me one real world project of a nuclear power station were the cost will come in under the cost for the MWh of currently build wind projects.
One can not look to India or China in regards to cost, because that are the governments building there.

mjoelnir wrote:

Point to one real world nuclear power project in the western world that is competitive with gas or wind regarding cost. There is the project in Finland, Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, projected to cost 3 billion EUR and to go on line in 2009, the cost are up to 8,5 billion EUR and is now projected to go on line in 2022.
Or take the Hinkley Point C, the government guaranteed price is 92.5 GBP per MWh, well above the current whole sale guaranteed price for new wind projects at about 45 GBP per MWh, the projects auctioned of to the lowest bidder in regards to cost.

I do not talk about advertisements from the nuclear power industry or some other unrealistic projections. Show me one real world project of a nuclear power station were the cost will come in under the cost for the MWh of currently build wind projects.

I did that with the reports and date I provided. All this base data if from the International Energy Administration and the OECD and involve real world data for the construction of all types of electrical power generation. Full cost includes not just the construction of the power plant - but also the cost to deliver that power to the customers which is often omitted by people talking about renewables.

The fact that Europe has completely mismanaged the EPR is not representative of the rest of the world.

So please get back with your comments after you have studied all the report links that I provided.

Concerning the possible future use of Gas and Liquid metal reactors to generate electricity for hydrogen fuel production.

The UK has the most experience with utility scale gas cooled reactors (C02). They built and operated a series of about 250MW power plants as the 1st generation, and the built a 7 2nd generation 1100 - 1250 MW plants which are all in current opertaion.

Unfortunately, they completely underestimated the cost to decommission these plants which they learned when decommissioning the 1st generation plants - the decommissioning cost are so hight that the UK no longer considers their AGR plants to be economically viable for future utility generation; and they are planning to build Light Water Reactors as replacements.

There were 2 utility scale High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) using helium as the coolant. Both were in the 300MW electrical output size range. The US built Fort Saint Vrain (40% thermal efficiency) and the Germans built the Thorium High Temperature Reactor (THTR) which is of the pebble bed design (41% thermal efficiency). Both reactors were constructed in the late 1960's into the 1970's, and operated until about 1990. Both reactors had unique issues that had not shown up on the preceding test reactors; and the construction and operating cost of both reactors was considered commercially uneconomical for future utility generation (I have a 2019 report that concludes that 5 test HTRGs and the 2 above utility HTGRs designs are all still not considered economically viable for utility generation).

Liquid metal reactors fall into 2 classes: Sodium cooled and lead/bismuth cooled.

I am aware of 11 utility generation sized liquid sodium cooled reactors built and 1 naval ships power reactor built (USS Seawolf - 1957) from the late 1950's to 2015. The US Navy removed the USS Seawolf reactor after 1 year as just to dangerous, and only Russia is currently operating 2 sodium cooled utility sized reactors. There are also only a few test reactors left running in the world as well. All others were shut down after short lives as they all suffered various issues. Some significant (Fermi 1 generation station had a partial meltdown in 1966 3 years after startup, and Monju in Japan had a sodium leak with a resulting fire in 1995 after 1 year of operation, and then further major equipment issues in 2010 when it was planning to restart).

The biggest single hazard from sodium cooled reactors is that a coolant leak produces an instant explosion if it contacts water or even steam vapor which results in a fire if there is oxygen present. This is a problem even for gas cooled sodium reactors as 1) you cannot prevent a coolant leak - that's impossible. 2) most plant fires are from maintenance activities - and if you eliminate the use of water to put out a small fire you are left only with methods that kill anybody in the area (flood the area with inert gases to remove oxygen). Also, small fires that generate heat create more damage unless you can cool the burning item down - and water is about the only effective way to cool things down.

All western countries that have built and then shutdown liquid sodium cooled utility reactors way sooner than planned (France, Germany, Japan, UK, USA) currently consider the technology uneconomical for utility service; and I'm not sure how you even get past the regulators the dangers and issues that occurred on all the various liquid sodium test and utility reactors. Liquid cooled reactors have proven to be the most dangerous and accident prone reactor technology out there over the decades. I understand the theoretical advantage of sodium. But the practical implementation has shown worldwide to have major problems.

The Soviet Union - and now Russia built 8 submarines with a eutectic lead/bismuth liquid metal alloy. Other than potential long term lead poisoning issues - which can be managed the biggest issue was corrosion of the piping and reactor metals used by the hot eutectic alloy. It is believed that they have identified and tested alloys that would not have those issues.

This is the safest liquid metal alloy out there with a track record as it does not violent react with water or steam vapor when it leaks. It is being looked at for future reactors (and at least 1 of the US SMR reactor designs is based on using lead/bismuth). It will have to undergo a long development process and time to get to proven utility scale service. That will take decades - just as any other of the new designs will.

Bottom line: Right now - the only commercially viable nuclear power generation option is Light Water Reactors. Gas cooled reactors and liquid sodium have already failed badly from an economic viability standpoint. New designs might overcome that, and they might not. Theories and possibilities are great. However, just like aircraft and jet engine design… it takes a lot of work, money, and time to turn theory into practical and economic viable reality

I'd love to see the real world development of viable non-fossil fuel transportation (aircraft & vehicle) fuel options.

Have a great day,

2175301 wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

Point to one real world nuclear power project in the western world that is competitive with gas or wind regarding cost. There is the project in Finland, Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, projected to cost 3 billion EUR and to go on line in 2009, the cost are up to 8,5 billion EUR and is now projected to go on line in 2022.
Or take the Hinkley Point C, the government guaranteed price is 92.5 GBP per MWh, well above the current whole sale guaranteed price for new wind projects at about 45 GBP per MWh, the projects auctioned of to the lowest bidder in regards to cost.

I do not talk about advertisements from the nuclear power industry or some other unrealistic projections. Show me one real world project of a nuclear power station were the cost will come in under the cost for the MWh of currently build wind projects.

I did that with the reports and date I provided. All this base data if from the International Energy Administration and the OECD and involve real world data for the construction of all types of electrical power generation. Full cost includes not just the construction of the power plant - but also the cost to deliver that power to the customers which is often omitted by people talking about renewables.

The fact that Europe has completely mismanaged the EPR is not representative of the rest of the world.

So please get back with your comments after you have studied all the report links that I provided.

You seem to completely misunderstand when I talk about real world data. I mean a power station being build or having been build. I do not talk about projections and planning.

When you talk about mismanagement. The Hinkley project was open to world wide bid. The project is not government managed apart from providing gigantic subsidies through guaranteed prices for the produced electricity. The UK government did need to offer double the guaranteed price for the electric production compared to then current wind projects to get anybody interested. Your builders of cheap nuclear power could have been bidding. They did not dare to go that low.

Again show me one real world project for nuclear power that comes out below current rates for wind power for example. The ones I know about do not manage for double the price.

I also do not get your argument, that nuclear power comes better out in distribution. Yes wind is often not direct beside the customer, but most of solar energy installed is local with short distribution ways.
Yes new power lines are needed for distributing wind power, but they are also needed for big nuclear.

From a primary energy perspective nuclear is nearly as unimportant as solar and wind today.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prim ... =~OWID_WRL
I have no doubt nuclear would become cheap if we build a thousand plants or so. Who wants to be in charge of insurance?

mjoelnir wrote:

You seem to completely misunderstand when I talk about real world data. I mean a power station being build or having been build. I do not talk about projections and planning.

When you talk about mismanagement. The Hinkley project was open to world wide bid. The project is not government managed apart from providing gigantic subsidies through guaranteed prices for the produced electricity. The UK government did need to offer double the guaranteed price for the electric production compared to then current wind projects to get anybody interested. Your builders of cheap nuclear power could have been bidding. They did not dare to go that low.

Again show me one real world project for nuclear power that comes out below current rates for wind power for example. The ones I know about do not manage for double the price.

I also do not get your argument, that nuclear power comes better out in distribution. Yes wind is often not direct beside the customer, but most of solar energy installed is local with short distribution ways.
Yes new power lines are needed for distributing wind power, but they are also needed for big nuclear.

I misunderstand nothing. You have not taken the time to review the reports I linked in my post above.

The 2020 cost of power generation report shows the real cost to build power plants - of all technologies from the lowest cost to the highest cost range for each technology.

The 2018 report on the "Full Cost" of delivering power report includes actual costs and then some estimated cost that are hard to put real numbers on; which are accepted by the experts world wide.

The report on how to reduce the cost of nuclear includes the actual cost of building a number of recent nuclear power plants.

Look in those reports and then you show me where this cheap solar or wind power is being built that you are asking me to match (and include transmission cost please). Only homeowner sized project use local distribution lines. Utility scale project are much cheaper to build per MW capacity than smaller home panels, and need to be connected to the transmission grid. It is utility solar and wind that is competing with utility base-load power plants.

I expect that the 2020 "Full Cost of Power" report will appear in the near future. The 2020 cost of power report was issued on Dec 9, 2020; but, not avaiable for web download until I believe it was March 5, 2021.

So those reports include real world data.

As far as Hinkley... What most people do not understand is that this most recent round of new plants have generally been "First of a kind" plants - which are always very expensive. So bidder were very cautious.

Also, just because someone won the bid - does not mean that the project was not mismanaged. The "How to reduce construction cost of Nuclear" is rather complete with the errors that have been made - so far - with the EPR reactors in Europe.

I'm not sure why they chose the EPR and that bidder. I do know other companies did bid - and perhaps they had a better understanding of the real cost to complete the project.

More news on Airbus ZeroE Developments. This is interesting/exciting.

They are using Superconducting Materials (cooled by the onboard liquid hydrogen) to halve the size/weight of the electrical components in the podded power concept. Very clever.

They seem quite serious about launching a program by 2025 for 2035.

https://aviationweek.com/special-topics ... 94ad9119bb

This may have been known - but they are making some big claims about Fusion being viable by 2030.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/nucle ... 00936.html

morrisond wrote:

This may have been known - but they are making some big claims about Fusion being viable by 2030.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/nucle ... 00936.html

They have to demonstrate sustained break-even first and none of these start-ups have done that yet. ITER's schedule is still the most realistic, which means more like 2045-50 for commercial viability.

Sokes wrote:

From a primary energy perspective nuclear is nearly as unimportant as solar and wind today.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prim ... =~OWID_WRL
I have no doubt nuclear would become cheap if we build a thousand plants or so. Who wants to be in charge of insurance?

Who wants to be in charge of insurance? Definitely not the companies that make money from it ! They are not at all interested in what happens to the contaminated material and thus also storage costs in all eternity. I myself worked in this industry for many years and have never seen one of the "gentlemen" inside the building after it was put into operation ! Why ???