I’m definitely not opposed to existing nuclear power plants. They should be kept operating for as long as is safely possible. But nuclear enthusiasts should read this thread. - ThreadSky

bobbyllew.bsky.social • 74 days ago

I’m definitely not opposed to existing nuclear power plants. They should be kept operating for as long as is safely possible. But nuclear enthusiasts should read this thread.

Reposted from Kees van der Leun

France's new nuclear power plant at Flamanville connected to the grid, 17 years after start of construction. The announced construction time back in 2007 was 4.5 years. www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Comments

nickclaridge.bsky.social•56 days ago

Has anyone got any sort of working thorium salt reactor in development or being built?? I’ve seen lots of positive videos about these but don’t think I’ve seen a working reactor.

guanajuatouk.bsky.social•74 days ago

Small incident in the far east around 2011 kind of halted quite a lot, pushing dates back and changing design requirements. Push any date back, and costs rise because contractors.

guanajuatouk.bsky.social•74 days ago

With Hinckley C, there was also the arrogance of AREVA assuming that they knew UK regulations better than the company they took over in the UK who told them the numerical argument and links between control and safety systems wouldn't get past the regulator.

guanajuatouk.bsky.social•74 days ago

And some Bloody Stupid™ design details such as a man access door at the bottom of the fuel pond that would only be used during construction. But could fail during operations.
Any redesign or delay means contractors see £££££££

guanajuatouk.bsky.social•74 days ago

Then look at Westinghouse AP1000 and the bickering between designers and construction contractors in the US. The Chinese AP1000 and EPR builds show it can be done if it's not beset with beancounters and blame

magnamundian.me•74 days ago

Nuclear can be a viable part of the electricity mix. The problem is that often politics gets in the way which is why we end up with poor designs that use low efficiency fissile materials and complex funding arrangements. The oil lobby would love renewables to fall into the same trap.

neilgascoigne.bsky.social•74 days ago

Small modular reactors are still a way off. All bar Sizewell will have gone offline by the end of the decade leaving the prospect of increased gas-based generation, higher prices and risking net-zero targets. There’s no certainty Hinkley will be online by then. https://auroraer.com/sector/flexible-energy-storage/comment-missing-the-point-what-a-delay-to-hinkley-point-c-means-for-the-gb-power-market/

waynedmoore.bsky.social•74 days ago

Sizewell will be offline but will need expensive babysitting for a century at considerable cost to the taxpayer.

claireemotions.com•74 days ago

Reading the build story on Wikipedia then looking up https://assuratome.fr followed by the political debate and state guarantee to fund/support
Then read the EDF balance sheet
Forget the waste management and explain why this makes any rational or economic sense

alexkanefsky.bsky.social•74 days ago

Yep. Focus has to be on renewables, not ploughing £bns into more nuclear

nicknet.bsky.social•74 days ago

There's no shortage of lessons in Flamanville for nuclear proponents, but nuclear opponents should also take heed of the IPCC who have nuclear in all successful 1.5-2°C mitigation pathways through 2100.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/
There is no 'renewables only' climate objective.
Only Carbon matters.

dad-climate.bsky.social•73 days ago

although the IPCC is good at the "science bit" some of the mitigation modelling has been heavily influenced by over complex models- that have some dubious assumptions on CO2 removal for example- so enough of "IPCC says"

nicknet.bsky.social•74 days ago

The story here isn't so much about nuclear as it is politics & business.
When the EPR was specified, AREVA designed it to significantly exceed every European regulatory requirement. Part of that was that the (unusually large) pressure vessel would be made from as few individual forgings as possible.

nicknet.bsky.social•74 days ago

- Nationalised industries being what they are, EDF & AREVA couldn't be seen to be giving the order to a foreign supplier (such as UK-Sheffield Forgemasters) for a plant in France (Flammanville) -and so despite it being the limit of their capacity, the order went to le Creusot

nicknet.bsky.social•74 days ago

My admittedly long winded point is that these are constructor issues, not design or technology issues.
As constructors 're learn' the skills we had in the 1980's then the build time will tend to even out.

nicknet.bsky.social•74 days ago

To this end EDF/Framatome have learned and redesigned the EPR so it should be cheaper (and faster!) to build.

And finally.
There's no rule that reaching net zero will save money.
We have to be prepared to invest heavily.

stuarthedges.bsky.social•74 days ago

Wow. And I thought France was good at nuclear (compared to us at least).

zypofaeser.bsky.social•74 days ago

Nah, if you want a good reactor you hire the Koreans.

pasco.bsky.social•74 days ago

Nuclear takes a long time to build and is expensive. Big shock.

All the more reason the best time to start building it was decades ago and the second best time is right now.

Climate change is an existential threat. We shouldn't be picking and choosing solutions.

Do everything, nuclear included.

gp5.bsky.social•74 days ago

It still lacks a lot of context, but Flamanville is going stay a talking point.

It's really a development project and not the blueprint.
It says something about EPR1-start, financing, Corona, design continuity!!!

Construction Start to Criticality Date
OLKILUOTO-3 12 Aug, 2005 21 Dec, 2021
1/n

gp5.bsky.social•74 days ago

Construction Start to Criticality Date
OLKILUOTO-3 12 Aug, 2005 21 Dec, 2021
FLAMANVILLE-3 03 Dec, 2007 03 Sep, 2024
TAISHAN-1 18 Nov, 2009 06 Jun, 2018
TAISHAN-2 15 Apr, 2010 28 May, 2019
HINKLEY POINT C-1 11 Dec, 2018 N/A
HINKLEY POINT C-1 12 Dec, 2019 N/A
1600-1670MWe range
2/n

gp5.bsky.social•74 days ago

Last one is Hinkley point C2 of course.

gp5.bsky.social•74 days ago

The French have a bit of a different perspective.
https://bsky.app/profile/voixdunucleaire.org/post/3ldquw7ehrs2t

ciprian.uk•74 days ago

There are strategic national interests to consider too. Keeping the nuclear industry going could be more important for France than the cost of one reactor – they have 50+ domestic reactors to maintain, they build reactors all over the world, including the UK, and they have nuclear weapons to manage

lowcarbonproject.bsky.social•74 days ago

Now I can see what the Nimby's keep going on about, I'd much rather that view than windmills too 😜😆🤢

limeyjeff.bsky.social•74 days ago

13 billion dollars for 1.3GW of 24 hours per day generation (so 31.2GWh per day). How much power per day would you get from $1.3bn of battery backed-up solar. I've not got the numbers, but I'm guessing it would be a lot more than 31.2GWh /day.

limeyjeff.bsky.social•74 days ago

Based upon a pessimistic price of $200 per kWh for grid storage, you could buy about 65GWh of grid scale battery storage with $13bn. Grid scale solar alone is less than $0.10 per kWh, so you could buy 1.3TWh of solar generation capacity at the upper limit of that cost.

cabbagepatchcat.bsky.social•74 days ago

Frustrating here in Oz where the opposition is pushing nuclear, with the sole (and obvious) purpose of delaying the clean energy transition. Your missus must be fuming!

davepermen.net•74 days ago

Existing plants are still needlessly expensive to run, maintain, and in the end clean. They're still all potentially disastrous. And they still all force renewables off the grid into curtailment.

So no, getting rid of them ASAP would benefit all of us.

gp5.bsky.social•74 days ago

No variable resources eat variable resources, it's called grid congestion.

zypofaeser.bsky.social•74 days ago

The lesson is don't buy your reactors from the Fr*nch.

(Seriously though, it's a matter of ensuring that your design is something your contractors know how to build)

flat-mars.bsky.social•71 days ago

The problem with nuclear; there's too much regulation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-regulation. But these regulations are based on old generation plant technology which were meltdown prone. Today's plants are orders of magnitude safer. Fewer regulations will lead to faster construction times. 🙂

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