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Waldo Jaquith

The difficulty of reopening an idled nuclear power plant (they're four years into a two-year project) highlights why the current nuclear power plant paradigm is dead. If you build a wind or a solar farm, that starts generating power *as you're building it*. That's Agile. Nuclear? That's waterfall.

Why Restarting a Nuclear Power Plant Can Be Much Harder Than Expected (Gift Article)The first U.S. attempt at reopening a shuttered reactor has been held back by run-down equipment and a lack of planning.www.nytimes.com
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Waldo Jaquith

Why would investors spend money on a nuclear project that may *never* generate power, and best case will take a decade+ of work before it makes a dime, when they could spend money on solar, which will generate power and revenue shortly after the project starts?

Обсуждение

5 прямых ответов · 32 сообщений

Peter Barlow, he/him #DavosSafe 313.7ppm

Why would they? I'm guessing that there are government financial guarantees against losses, and in the meantime the contractors charge top dollar for their services. That's certainly how it works here in the UK.

Ответ для Peter Barlow, he/him #DavosSafe 313.7ppm
Waldo Jaquith

There are subsidized loans, but AFAIK that's it.

George

My understanding is that there are now smaller, more modular designed nuclear power plants that can be dropped in quickly. Imagine a data center in west Texas, nowhere near residential, with a dedicated nuclear plants running it, and recirculating coolant.

Ответ для George
Waldo Jaquith

There are, but afaik, NRC permitting hasn’t caught up. Until the first one is approved, and reusable permits are enshrined (“oh, if this is identical to an existing reactor then, sure, approved”), they’re not any faster or cheaper.

Plainfield

They can meter a power plant.

Amy Hoy

well, for one, it has a super cool bank of giant switches. and it’s PINK

Waldo Jaquith

This is a problem, because our blend of power sources needs to include some sources of power that will operate when it's dark out or the wind isn't blowing. Both the NRC and nuclear power plant industry deserve some blame here, but fundamentally nuclear power requires lots of oversight.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
don

A specific aspect of that that I didn't see in the article is that nuclear power faces similar certification lock-in issues as airframes. E.g., if the control room was originally specced and certified using vacuum tubes, they can't replace those with ICs without re-certifying the whole setup.

Ответ для don
Waldo Jaquith

Oh, interesting! I didn't know about that.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
don

I read about it more than a decade ago (and couldn't find a primary source just now), so it may not be as much of a factor anymore, but given how many engineering disasters stem from the replacement of one element of a design with something cheaper but "identical", I see where they're coming from.

Ответ для don
Waldo Jaquith

Oooh, what an interesting article that sounds like!

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
don

Aha! I found _an_ article, at least - it's more recent than whatever I originally was thinking of, but it did remind me that @funranium.bsky.social is probably *THE* person to ask about this stuff: www.funraniumlabs.com/2021/01/choo...

CHOOSE YOUR OWN RADIATION ADVENTURE - Old Tubes - Funranium LabsI should preface that my primary vacuum tube experience is related to trying to fix the 1920s built-in wall radio made of redwood in a house my family rented when I was in elementary school. Readers, ...www.funraniumlabs.com
Ответ для don
Waldo Jaquith

I'll read this tonight—it looks really interesting. Thanks!

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
somelabels

Someday pretty soon we'll start hearing about cities, regions, nations going weeks/months/years on 100% solar/wind and storage backups. I guarantee we'll be told very seriously that in China the wind blows harder and the sun shines stronger, and of course none of this can be done in the US.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Terri Miyamoto

I can't imagine we'll be down to zero fossil fuels maybe ever. So if we needed some natural gas generation for dark/calm, would that be awful? I admit to being of the generation that's scared of nuclear. I was pregnant when 3 Mile Island happened and seriously considered where should I go.

Ответ для Terri Miyamoto
Waldo Jaquith

It’s a question of what we’re optimizing for! If it’s climate change, then nuclear all the way. There are some great new reactor designs where a meltdown isn’t a real risk anymore…but none have been built in the US.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Waldo Jaquith

Bent Flyvbjerg's "How Big Things Get Done" uses power generation as an example of the value of working iteratively. A nuclear plant, you build once, and it's only usable when done. Utility-scale solar, you build a rack & install panels. Then you just keep repeating that, making power all the while.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Waldo Jaquith

I am confident that I am capable of doing virtually none of the work required to build a nuclear power plant. But utility-scale solar? I think I am capable of learning and doing the bulk of the labor, if handed instructions. You probably are too! So solar is cheap, and nuclear is expensive.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Greg Greene (he/him/his)

Yes, but nuclear smash atoms! Nuclear run white-hot. Nuclear is manful, with concrete and steel. (Just alluding to my position that there's an inherent substrate of gender undergirding this stuff, as absurd as that thought is.)

Ответ для Greg Greene (he/him/his)
Waldo Jaquith

I wonder if that's true for nuclear! Maybe nuclear seems tough, because bombs can be nuclear? I *know* it's true for coal, oil, and probably natural gas (though maybe "natural" is, like, Whole Foods fuel, idk).

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Greg Greene (he/him/his)

Right — nuclear goes "boom," people are afraid of nuclear, people can use nuclear to make swaggering threats. A photovoltaic panel … not so much, right?

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Waldo Jaquith

Assembling the first rack will take a while, mounting the first few panels will be slow. But repetition builds experience. By your 1,000th panel, you'll be a pro. My aunt & uncle spent their careers as nuclear power plant engineers. I'd be surprised if they'd worked on ten plants between them.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Max Fenton

Can't be harder than a chicken coop

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Daniel Mintz

They’re spending several billion dollars in order to produce power that costs….about the same per MWh as solar + storage? Wtf are we doing here?

Ответ для Daniel Mintz
Waldo Jaquith

I am also confused by this, but I assume (hope) the people overhauling a nuclear power plant probably know a lot of things that I don't.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Word_Geek

By now, there are almost no nuclear power plant engineers left. Like, the French kept building them, and apart from them it's the Chinese and possibly the Russians, I think. Nobody else has experience getting a plant up and going. They would be getting people out of retirement Solar is a lot easier

Ответ для Word_Geek
Waldo Jaquith

Yeah, my aunt and uncle didn't build a single power plant in the U.S. in their entire careers. Both are retired now. My hunch is that the remaining engineers in the U.S. are likewise people who live here, but their clients are all in other countries.

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Don W

I'm sure you could learn to do what's needed at nuclear plants. All my reading about them mentions work being done by Waldos.

Ответ для Don W
Waldo Jaquith

I see what you did there

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Peter Griesar

One thing I noticed about all the new companies who claim to be in nuclear is they need to pay rolls royce, westinghouse, or ge for the real nuclear plant engineering.

Ответ для Peter Griesar
Waldo Jaquith

I speculate that this is like airplane makers who get their engines from Rolls Royce. Perhaps the reactor itself comes from Westinghouse, but the rest of the plant is made by the prime vendor?

Ответ для Waldo Jaquith
Peter Griesar

My understanding is there are some things in engineering only a few firms have the capability to do.