Buying time isn’t a great argument for nuclear when it takes so much longer than wind or solar to build a plant - median time of 88 months to build a nuclear plant compared to 8-14 for solar.
People will get on board when they see the cost per kwh.
Which isn’t unusual for large construction projects. Nuclear is biggest cost problem is that each power plant is essentially a mega civil engineering project. They require cooling ponds, cooling towers, huge reactors, turbines, and radiation shields.
All of which are fairly large structures that have to be built to pretty high tolerances and have little room for construction defects which are very common in the industry. I work in construction and I can tell you that the majority of construction projects, whether they are an office building, a highway or a bridge run over budget.
There are always going to be factors outside of the control of the design team and the developer. Contractors may run out of labor, supply chains may have many years to complete some of the equipment and these issues compound the schedule which is already very complicated. Do we have an even discussed the expanded and politicized planning and safety rules and certifications that a new nuclear plant is going to need to follow.
I think the solution for micro reactors is pretty intriguing, except we need lots of power not small amounts of power. But a mass-produced reactor that rules off of an assembly line in a factory is likely to be on time and on budget because they can correct for for the problem of building things in the field. It’s really hard for people to fabricate complicated machines when they’re being rained on in the middle of winter during a storm.
Buying time isn’t a great argument for nuclear when it takes so much longer than wind or solar to build a plant - median time of 88 months to build a nuclear plant compared to 8-14 for solar.
People will get on board when they see the cost per kwh.
Nuclear is most of the time over budget and planning. That’s a fact.
Over budget and over planning is bad.
…but also irrelevant - I gave the average real world delivery times.
Which isn’t unusual for large construction projects. Nuclear is biggest cost problem is that each power plant is essentially a mega civil engineering project. They require cooling ponds, cooling towers, huge reactors, turbines, and radiation shields.
All of which are fairly large structures that have to be built to pretty high tolerances and have little room for construction defects which are very common in the industry. I work in construction and I can tell you that the majority of construction projects, whether they are an office building, a highway or a bridge run over budget.
There are always going to be factors outside of the control of the design team and the developer. Contractors may run out of labor, supply chains may have many years to complete some of the equipment and these issues compound the schedule which is already very complicated. Do we have an even discussed the expanded and politicized planning and safety rules and certifications that a new nuclear plant is going to need to follow.
I think the solution for micro reactors is pretty intriguing, except we need lots of power not small amounts of power. But a mass-produced reactor that rules off of an assembly line in a factory is likely to be on time and on budget because they can correct for for the problem of building things in the field. It’s really hard for people to fabricate complicated machines when they’re being rained on in the middle of winter during a storm.