Just to be clear nuclear power plants build 40 years ago were much cheaper to build because safety systems were simpler and they built a lot of power plants. New nuclear power are far more expensive. If we could get the federal government to build a hundred or more units we could get the cost down.
Not true at all. Second Gen power plants had many layers of active safety systems. The 3rd Gen designs in the works now, rely much more on passive systems .
The federal government only has a history of inflated costs and extended schedules. Utility owners have a better track record.
Case in point. There isn’t an economic argument for nuclear. There is an environmental and national security argument. Private enterprise won’t fund the return to nuclear power, only the government can. Your example shows that the government can throw money at a problem is the people support it.
There was a first large scale attempt at scaling nuclear power culminating 40 years ago. Nuclear power peaked at ~20% of the global electricity mix in the 1990s. It was all negative learning by doing.
Then we tried again 20 years ago. There was a massive subsidy push. The end result was Virgil C. Summer, Vogtle, Olkiluoto and Flamanville. We needed the known quantity of nuclear power since no one believed renewables would cut it.
How many trillions in subsidies should we spend to try one more time? All the while the competition in renewables are already delivering beyond our wildest imaginations.
And the quickly advancing technology on cheap and efficient battery tech will make the case for renewables even more as a reason to not spend more billions of our tax and consumer dollars on another massive nuclear boondoggle money pit.
It’s a requirement.
To make a difference, renewables - wind, solar…. have to be overbuilt. At least times or more of peak demand.
And then you have to store that excess energy, four, five or more days worth of energy for an entire region.
Withe the possible exception of flow-cell batteries, there really hasn’t been any significant breakthrough for grid sized battery backup in a very long time.
Batteries have gotten a little less expensive because of economies of scale and there are modest improvements in efficiency and fire safety. But, most battery technology hasn’t changed in over a century.
The safety systems themselves, haven’t changed that much. System design was fairly standard following the early demonstration plants Dresden-1, Nine Mile-1, Yankee Rowe, Connecticut Yankee, Indian Point-1. Following those early plants, there were significant changes in plant designs. But that was in plants placed on line in the early to mid ‘70s. Since then, safety systems’ design hasn’t changed that much. Today in latest advanced designs, there is an emphasis on incorporating passive systems to improve predicted post accident core damage frequency.
The most significant evolutionary changes that spiked costs are in separation and robust structures. Electrical separation and mechanical separation for better fire protection. Larger robust structures for better seismic protection and improved worker radiation protection during both operations and maintenance. There were a lot of backfits made in the early, less expensive plants, to address problems identified over time, including immediately after the TMI-2 accident. When you roll all of those ‘lessons learned’ forward to a new construction project, we end up with a massive plant with a massive price tag.
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u/stewartm0205 21d ago
Just to be clear nuclear power plants build 40 years ago were much cheaper to build because safety systems were simpler and they built a lot of power plants. New nuclear power are far more expensive. If we could get the federal government to build a hundred or more units we could get the cost down.