>Nuclear power plants struggle with economics already

Because they are over-regulated. Why? Because of nucleophobia, which is fueled by fossil fuel producers.

epistasis 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's simply untrue and focusing on it will continue to result in nuclear failure after nuclear failure.

Nobody has some sort of proposal of a different regulatory scheme that is somehow cheaper. Even France, which built a ton decades ago, has completely failed for more than a decade at building. South Korea has been somewhat successful at building, but also sends execs to jail for faking parts approvals. But perhaps that would be cheap to fix.

What has changed since the mid 20th century is that construction labor is far more expensive in comparison to other things that can be done with that labor. Construction productivity has remained roughly constant over time, as manufacturing and other productivity has gone through the roof.

Nuclear is fundamentally a big construction project. SMRs weresypposed to be an attempt to make nuclear power a manufacturing project, not a construction project. But it turns out that construction projects like the BWRX300 are the only real SMRs that can be produced, after a decade of hype. Manufacturing SMRs like 747s is not any more real today than it was when the nuclear PR machine turned to it in the wake of the financial and construction disaster of the AP1000s at Summer and Vogtle.

The real story of nuclear is the need for super cheap labor, and excellent high-tech construction capacity. These two requirements are at odds with each other, because in societies with high tech construction skills, labor quickly becomes expensive.

Even places like China with lots of successful nuclear projects is only building a tiny tiny amount of nuclear when compared to their wind, solar, and batteries. China does everything, and they won't abandon nuclear completely because a nuclear workforce is essential for a country with superpower ambitions, but the nuclear power is there for the superpower ambitions, not the electricity generation.

	▲	seec 12 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's funny you say that. Renewables are "cheap" precisely because a lot of the labor cost is offloaded to cheap labor countries with low regulations. There is basically no solar panel market outside of China, and that says something. It's a very messy process and benefits largely from China's willingness to not care. Every single big renewable project is heavily backed by government and subsidies. Wind is big in Germany, because gov pushed it very hard, not because it's naturally competitive. So far, I see a lot of ideologues pushing the "cheaper" argument even though it hasn't been true at all, and the long-term prospect don't look very good compared to nuclear. But it has more political support, so it is made to be more "competitive" and that's basically all there is to it. Even residential solar only makes sense when people who install it get paid a lot more than the bulk electricity actually cost, if people had to pay themselves for both panels and storage it is largely a loss compared to regulated market price for electricity in many places in Europe.
	▲	AtlasBarfed 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I just don't think smrs work without figuring out Lftrs. Because lifters can use almost all the fuel, are inherently meltdown proof, you basically take away the two worst dangers of nuclear. The issue with degradation of the piping and everything from the molten salts can probably be solved by a replacement cycle. But to be fair, I have no idea how China's MSR is going
	▲	pas 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If the EU and US would each commit to build, fund 100+ NPPs over the next years then it would make sense to gear up for a scheme. Unfortunately each plant is a fucking special snowflake. Due to new sites somehow requiring changes which is absurd, since the containment and everything under it should be 1:1 copy, right? Yes, because the NRC doesn't work like that. Designs are tweaked. Anyway as you said it's a very expensive bespoke weld and pour festival.

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SoftTalker 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They are also built and run by public or quasi-public utilities. I don't think we have a lot of examples of the private sector building nuclear generating plants. Maybe they can do it better, when it's their own money on the line, and they don't have a legally granted monopoly protecting them.

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two_handfuls 3 days ago | parent [-]

Privatizing electricity in California resulted in massive underinvestment and forest fires as a result of poor maintenance.

Privatization only saves money if you ignore the price paid by surrounding communities.

I would not like to see a fully private nuclear plant.

	▲	AtlasBarfed 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Privatization of electricity hands a company a monopoly
	▲	ViewTrick1002 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Depends on how you do it. The electrical supply and demand markets can be privatized and that works quite well with few ancillary services needed. Privatizing the grid is a shit show since it is a natural monopoly.