Sir_Osis_of_Liver

Vogtle 3 & 4 are AP1000s. Construction started in 2013 (preliminary work had started before this, but a design change halted it). Unit 3 was originally supposed to complete commissioning in 2017, but only happened last year. Unit 4 should be online this year. The initial $12B budget went to $14B at the start of construction, but will end up somewhere over $30B.

V.C . Summer in South Carolina has a similar project with two AP1000s. The initial budget was $9B, but the project was cancelled while under construction when projections put the total cost over $23B.

There have been 6 EPRs built, Flamanville-3, Olkiluoto-3, Taishan-1 & 2, and Hinkley Point C (2 units).
All of them are/were massively over budget and behind schedule.

Olkiluoto started construction in 2005, was supposed to complete commissioning in 2010, but only came online last year. Costs went from €3B to somewhere over €11B, the contract ‘not-to-exceed’ amount.

Flamanville started construction in 2007, was supposed to complete commissioning in 2012, but is projected to complete commissioning late this year. Costs went from €3.3B to somewhere over €20B.

Hinkley Point C is still under construction. It’s difficult to put an actual start date because a pile of preliminary site prep work happened prior to real construction starting. Concrete was poured in 2016 though and it was supposed to be operational in 2023. They’re now estimating 2028 at the earliest. Costs have gone from £16B to and estimated £35B.

Taishan 1 & 2 started construction in 2009/10 and went online in 2018/19, roughly 5 years late. Unit 1 had to be taken offline for a year due to faulty fuel bundles. Both units have had reliability issues. Costs ended up at the equivalent of $7.5B, almost double the original estimate.

I was curious, so I checked to see the current longest ultra-high voltage dc transmission line:

The Changji-Guquan ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission line in China is the world’s first transmission line operating at 1,100kV voltage.

Owned and operated by state-owned State Grid Corporation of China, the 1,100kV DC transmission line also covers the world’s longest transmission distance and has the biggest transmission capacity globally.

The transmission line traverses for a total distance of 3,324km (2065 miles) and is capable of transmitting up to 12GW of electricity.

As a general rule of thumb, HVAC lines will be somewhere around 5-6% line loss per 1000kms, and HVDC somewhere around 3%/1000kms

Electricity from HydroQuebec comes from hydro dams in the north (James Bay and Churchill, Labrador) of the province to interties at the US border. They’re using 735kV and 765kV AC for their long runs.

In my own province of Manitoba, there are three sets of high voltage direct current (450kVdc) lines that go between 900kms and 1300kms to population centres and the US border. The first one built in the early 1970s.

There are a number of HVDC lines in the US too, California has some that have been in service for 50+ years.

People keep saying this, but it’s not accurate.

An EPR is an EPR, the same with the AP1000. There are only very minor differences between installs, usually things that will help ease of construction or reliability on future builds. Both are GEN III+ designs, greatly simplified compared to previous generations, with fewer pump, valves and pipe-runs. They also shortened pipe runs where possible. They also have large, factory-built assemblies that are shipped to site, ready to “bolt” in, which should have reduced site construction time.

Where major changes do happen, it’s with the balance of plant infrastructure, which is site dependent. Location of access roads, where the switchyard is installed, where cooling water is accessed , etc will never be the same between sites. Nor will the geotech information. So a lot of mainly civil and structural design and fabrication will always be site specific.

The KLT-40S reactor is a variant of the KLT-40 reactors developed for and installed in the Taymyr icebreakers back in the late 1980s. It should have been cheap, as it’s a known quantity with a long track record.

The Akademik Lomonosov was supposed to cost the equivalent of $232M, but ended up somewhere north of $700M all for a net electrical output of 64MWe. In that respect, it follows a familiar path for nuclear projects.

On a cost/kW basis, it’s about three times the cost of wind installations. ($3625/kW vs $1300/kW)

The last co-gen plant I worked on had an output of 353MWe and cost about $450M, which was about $50M under budget.

Vogtle ended up at roughly $13,000/kW. On shore wind globally is averaging roughly $1,300/kW. Grid-scale batteries are running roughly $3,000/kW, then add in for how much ride-through you expect to need.

Depending on local conditions, you can build out 10x as much wind capacity as you need, or various combinations of wind + solar+ batteries and still end up less expensive and with a faster deployment time than nuclear.

Lol, no. Électricité de France is being re-nationalized by the French government due to their terrible financials. Areva/Framatome needed cash injections to avoid creditor protection. Westinghouse did have to file for creditor protection and almost took down parent company Toshiba, but they were sold off at a loss to a private equity firm.

Nuclear only looks good on an operational basis. Once you add in construction and refurbishment/decommissioning costs, it looks far worse.

His figures are ridiculously optimistic for nuclear, $6000/kW and 6 year construction times.
Flamanville-3 and Olkiluoto-3 were both 12 years over their 5 year construction schedules. They were supposed to cost €3.3B and €3B respectively for 1650MW. Flamanville is expected to end up somewhere over €20B (€12000/kW), and Olkiluoto is somewhere around €11B, only due to ‘not to exceed’ limits in the supply contracts.

Hinkley Point C has gone from £16B to near enough £30B for 3200MW (£9400/kW)

It was the same with Vogtle 3 & 4. The preliminary budget of $12B, was changed initially to $14B at the start of construction. It’s now somewhere around $30B and 7 years late. The two AP1000s have a combined output of 2200MW ($13000/kW).
V.C.Summer 2 & 3 was a similar pair of AP1000s. Costs went from $9B to $23B when the project was cancelled mid-construction.

Wind and solar are far faster to deploy, and typically on or near budget. The new, much cheaper redox flow batteries (100 MW/400 MWh for $266M Dalian, China) are capable of smoothing intermittency in areas without hydro, which can perform a similar function.

Edit. I should add that as of 2021, the global average for onshore wind is roughly $1300/kW. Prices continue to fall as new designs are introduced.

Haters gonna hate, I guess.

I appreciate the content.

I used to restore “barn bikes”, most of them were Japanese. It took me a while to figure out the difference between Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) and Phillips screws. Of course over the years, a lot of the fasteners had already been cammed out by previous owners using a Phillips screwdriver in a JIS screw. I had to resort to the die grinder method far more than I’d have preferred.

Torx or Robertson, are the only ones worth a damn.

Yeah, the “difficult” part, I don’t understand. I’m 56 and figured out /kbin and Mastodon and how federation works within a few hours. So far, so good.

I was around for the early days of Fark, Digg, Twitter and Reddit. New sites are rough around the edges. That’s just the way it is. Things will get sorted in due time.

Quando flunkus omni moritati.

There is a federation on/off button on kbin. It’s the little triangle symbol in the upper right next to the settings gear symbol.