Thread

NRC issues first U.S. construction permit for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor

151 points · 191 comments · papa-whisky

testing22321 · 1790741363 · focus · HN ↗
Place your bets now.
Time until first power generated, and actual final total cost.
I’ll go 15 years and $10 Billion.
1. mpweiher · 1790753387 · focus · HN ↗
  How certain are you of your prediction? What odds would you give me if I bet against you?
  10:1?
  100:1?
  Background:
  The BWRX predecessor, the ABWR, holds the record for the fastest construction time of a commercial nuclear power plant ever: just slightly over 3 years to first criticality, 4 years total to commercial operation.
  Fun fact: it was the success of this first Gen III reactor that caused EDF to predict the EPRs would also only take 3 years to build. Which proved...optimistic. For the EPR. But proven for the ABWR.
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_boiling_water_reactor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_boiling_water_reactor
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Power_Plant" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Pow...
  <a href="https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/nuclear-construction-time" rel="nofollow">https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/nuclear-construction-ti...
  The BWRX is also passively safe: cooling occurs via natural circulation, no pumps needed.
  So if it takes 15 years I give you $100, if it takes less you give me $10000?
  Deal?
  1. roryirvine · 1790765297 · focus · HN ↗
    Sadly, the ABWR has also proven to be unreliable and uneconomic.
    Hitachi spent most of the 2010s trying to get a couple of them underway in the UK (which has a generally favourable regulatory environment) but eventually pulled out after 12 years with £2bn spent and nothing built.
    Maybe the BWRX will have better luck - but I'd not want to stake any money on it myself.
    mpweiher · 1790787251 · focus · HN ↗
    > Sadly, the ABWR has also proven to be unreliable and uneconomic.
    Citation needed.
    > Hitachi spent most of the 2010s trying to get a couple of them underway in the UK
    That's not evidence of them being uneconomic or unreliable.
    > (which has a generally favourable regulatory environment)
    Excuse me? The regulatory environment that is responsible for the 7000 design changes at Hinkley Point C and thus most of the eye-watering delays and cost overruns? The regulatory environment that required the £ 700 million "fish disco" that will save a few salmon at a cost of around £ 280000 per fish?
    A series of "radical, root-cause solutions" is required to simplify the UK's nuclear regulatory system in order to speed up the construction of new nuclear projects at a lower cost and on time, an independent taskforce has concluded.
    <a href="https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/radical_reforms_needed_to_UK_nuclear_regulation_says_taskforce" rel="nofollow">https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/radical_reforms_...
  2. jfengel · 1790769735 · focus · HN ↗
    I think that when people casually pronounce a bet like that, they generally mean even odds. If they meant something else they'd likely say so explicitly.
    mpweiher · 1790837186 · focus · HN ↗
    My apologies, I left out a step, or more precisely, folded two steps into one.
    The way it usually goes with anti-nuclear activists when they make pronouncements like this is as follows:
    1. It will take at least 15 years and cost 100 gazillion dollars
    2. Are you sure?
    3. Yes, this is 100% what will happen. It is 100% certain, because nuclear does not and cannot work.
    4. OK, then let's put some money where our mouths are. Your 100% certainty means you should be willing to give me infinite odds, because any money I put up is automatically yours. Completely risk free income for you. But I am happy to reduce those odds to just 100:1, so I put up $100 and you put up $10.000.
    6. <crickets>
    crote · 1790842217 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay, let's follow that logic. I am willing to bet $1 that there will be construction delays and that there will be cost overruns. How many millions are you willing to bet that there will be absolutely zero delays and overruns?
    If those reactors are so fantastic, surely you wouldn't hesitate at a chance to get some free money - no matter how little?
    mpweiher · 1790849981 · focus · HN ↗
    What you did there has nothing to do with logic.
    Something not being 100% certain does not imply the opposite being 100% certain.
  3. guywithahat · 1790779535 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure but the ABWR was built in Japan, and the largest impediment to safe and profitable nuclear reactors is regulatory. The Trump admin have made substantial efforts to simplify the process to approve nuclear reactors however we have yet to see whether that's enough, or whether they'll be able to hit their 12-18 month licensing approval goals.
    mmooss · 1790785482 · focus · HN ↗
    > the largest impediment to safe and profitable nuclear reactors is regulatory
    I don't know any evidence of that. My understanding is that it's a highly complex technology, many components unavoidably take a long time to construct, and it may be fundamentally uneconomic.
    Has anyone, anywhere in the world profitably (subtracting subsidies) constructed one?
    mpweiher · 1790786577 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. Most nuclear power plants are (highly) profitable and not subsidized.
    mmooss · 1790786902 · focus · HN ↗
    That's counter to everything I've read. Any evidence?
    guywithahat · 1790788176 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not who you responded to but my recollection is that most reactors are decades old. The old ones do well. but the new ones are unprofitable/have issues. ABWR, for instance, is unprofitable.
    mmooss · 1790789625 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks. Do you know if that that includes initial costs like construction - have they paid for themselves?
    mpweiher · 1790840030 · focus · HN ↗
    What is your source for ABWR being "unprofitable"? Anything beyond "people are saying"? Because I sure couldn't find any. So I asked Google. This is what Google said:
    When isolating the existing, completed Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs), they are highly profitable—provided they are actually allowed to operate.
    mmooss · 1790889061 · focus · HN ↗
    Regardless of whether you are right or wrong, LLMs are mechanisms that report 'what people are saying'.
    mpweiher · 1790890949 · focus · HN ↗
    1. If what you claim were true, if LLMs represent "what people are saying" it would still mean that the claim people here were making about "what people are saying" is false.
    2. What you claim is false. The processes are quite different.
    3. I did not present the Google answer as "the truth". I presented it only as what it is: "what Google said". In the context of "I couldn't find any online corroborations of the previous poster's claims".
    If you confuse "this is what Google said" with "this is the truth", that's a you-problem.
    4. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -- Hitchen's Razor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
    The claim that ABWRs are "unprofitable" has now been asserted several times without any evidence whatsoever. Therefore, the only thing I actually have to do to dismiss that claim is say "wrong".
    mmooss · 1790922163 · focus · HN ↗
    If you lay it out like that, does it make what you say more true?
    > the claim people here were making about "what people are saying" is false.
    You were the one using that phrase.
    > I did not present the Google answer as "the truth".
    Oh baloney.
    mpweiher · 1790924753 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you lay it out like that, does it make what you say more true?
    No.
    It was just as true before as it is after.
    > You were the one using that phrase.
    I was using that phrase to describe what people were doing. Do you understand the difference between doing something and describing that thing that people are doing?
    >> I did not present the Google answer as "the truth". I presented it only as what it is: "what Google said".
    > Oh baloney.
    That is literally what I wrote: "Because I sure couldn't find any. So I asked Google. This is what Google said:"
    Again, if you can't tell the difference between "this is what Google said" and "this is the truth" then that is most definitely a you-problem. On three levels:
    - first, they are literally and undisputably different words.
    - second, believing that those two different sets of words mean the same thing is..."interesting".
    - third, even if you yourself believe that these words mean the same thing (which, again, "interesting"), assuming that others partake in that interpretation is at best presumptuous.
    mpweiher · 1790802164 · focus · HN ↗
    You might need to adjust your sources.
    Do you have any evidence for your claim?
    This meme that nuclear power plants are unprofitable and require subsidies has been spread wide and far by the anti-nuclear lobby, but is still false.
    As an example, when the Greens started to come into government in Germany, they tried to force nuclear operators out of business by creating onerous safety rules just for the purpose of forcing them out of business.
    It didn't work.
    The plants were so profitable that they could afford even the most ridiculous additional safety requirements. So they had to make them illegal.
    Furthermore, you can look at France. EDF has been immensely profitable, despite having to sell a large amount of electricity at discounted rates.
    Here's an explainer.
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
    mmooss · 1790810266 · focus · HN ↗
    Your comment is interesting: It fits well enough in one group's political talking points - anti-regulation, anti-liberal, revisionist information, absolute and not weighing costs and benefits - that it makes me quite skeptical. Add a YouTube video as a source and it crosses a threshold for me.
    That doesn't make it wrong!
    > Do you have any evidence for your claim?
    No; you agree it's a well-known claim. I've never heard what you say (that I recall). Including the GGP claim that most aren't subsidized.
    mpweiher · 1790833335 · focus · HN ↗
    How you want to diffame the information I presented is up to you.
    I note that you have no actual information to counter it. Nor do you have, by your own admission, any information to back up your claims.
    The "YouTube video" is by a professor for nuclear science from the University of Illinois.
    <a href="https://cpmi.illinois.edu" rel="nofollow">https://cpmi.illinois.edu
    Professor David Ruzic, head of that department, to be precise.
    <a href="https://npre.illinois.edu/people/profile/druzic" rel="nofollow">https://npre.illinois.edu/people/profile/druzic
    <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Hv__SVAAAAAJ&hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Hv__SVAAAAAJ&hl=en
    And yes, misinformation about nuclear energy is widely disseminated and thus "well known". Are we really at the point that Trump's "people are saying" is the standard for evidence?
    I think we can do better.
    ViewTrick1002 · 1790841425 · focus · HN ↗
    Given that the nuclear industry would shut down overnight if having to pay its own insurance costs it’s quite hard to take you seriously when you say it’s not subsidized.
    mpweiher · 1790844187 · focus · HN ↗
    That turns out not to be the case.
    ViewTrick1002 · 1790850050 · focus · HN ↗
    The Price-Anderson act and equivalents around the world tells a different story.
    In Sweden in 2022 the right wing coalition which won promised new nuclear would appear if only it was allowed. Quickly they abandoned large scale nuclear in favor of SMR, PowerPoints reactors are always cheap.
    Four years later, we are at:
    - The state takes essentially all financial risk, even borrowing the money because Vattenfall refuses to put it on its own balance sheet.
    - The state provides a huge direct taxpayer handout.
    - The state takes the construction risk. Cost overruns means taxpayers put in more.
    - The state subsidizes the entire final waste repository.
    - The state subsidizes roughly the entire accident liability.
    - The state guarantees the electricity price for 40 years.
    That rather proves the point about what happens when new nuclear meets actual financing conditions.
    And right wing coaltion just lost the latest election two weeks ago. Seems like we didn't get any new nuclear after all.
    mpweiher · 1790851017 · focus · HN ↗
    That also is almost entirely untrue and has virtually nothing to do with your original claim.
    ViewTrick1002 · 1790851398 · focus · HN ↗
    Which bullet is false? Be specific.
    mpweiher · 1790886638 · focus · HN ↗
    I am not going to participate in your Gish Gallop.
    If you answer on point to the point, we can have a discussion.
    Otherwise: gish along...
    ViewTrick1002 · 1790890628 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ll take that as confirmation that you can’t identify a single false claim.
    Which is unsurprising, since all six are based on publicly available information.
    mpweiher · 1790923163 · focus · HN ↗
    That would an incorrect conclusion.
    As I wrote before: your "claims" are largely just your opinions, some misunderstanding/misinterpretation of the relevant information, but most importantly they are irrelevant.
    And I won't engage in your Gish gallop.
    Of course, you could have understood that the first time I wrote it.
    But feel free to further demonstrate your lack of understanding.
    Your call. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    mpweiher · 1790850948 · focus · HN ↗
    > whether they'll be able to hit their 12-18 month licensing approval goals.
    The very license TFA is about took 14 months.
    The NRC completed its review in 14 months—four months ahead of schedule—after concluding that TVA’s application met applicable safety requirements.
    <a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/press/release-the-nrc-approves-construction-permit-for-tvas-clinch-river-small-modular-reactor" rel="nofollow">https://thebreakthrough.org/press/release-the-nrc-approves-c...
2. moring · 1790757503 · focus · HN ↗
  The point of small modular reactors is not the cost of the first one, but that the cost goes down with each subsequent one. The cost of the first one is expected to be high. IMHO this is very well explained in "How Big Things Get Done" by Bent Flyvbjerg.
  1. mpweiher · 1790761255 · focus · HN ↗
    Smaller reactors = more reactors.
    More reactors = riding the cost curve more quickly.
3. jacquesm · 1790759454 · focus · HN ↗
  Profitable power or just power?
  If the former: it might never happen.
  1. mpweiher · 1790762135 · focus · HN ↗
    Nuclear reactors are highly profitable:
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
    Lowest LCOE by far is "nuclear LTO (Long Term Operation)".
    <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020" rel="nofollow">https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
    Yes, the plants are big and expensive, but once built, they are cheap to run and last pretty much forever.
    SMRs lower the up-front cost, the time to build, the risk, and the financing costs, which are the biggest component of the construction costs.
    Initially at somewhat higher cost per kWh, but there is plenty of headroom there. And the various nuclear startups have cost projections that range from 2-3 cents to below 1 cent / kWh.
    jacquesm · 1790763680 · focus · HN ↗
    They are highly profitable when subsidized and you ignore decommissioning costs.
    1 cent / kWh cost is fantasy land.
    mpweiher · 1790786516 · focus · HN ↗
    This is incorrect.
    jacquesm · 1790845270 · focus · HN ↗
    You will need to do better than that. All of the public figures support my position, if you are unable or unwilling to document your assertions which you make with great conviction and which contradict the evidence you will need to bring some of your own. Nuclear power has its uses but it isn't cheap unless you start picking your figures very selectively. That's fine if you want to convince yourself that you are right but it doesn't really help: it makes you look like a rabid supporter of something without an eye towards the realities and in the long run that works against your cause, not for it.
    Finally, if there is one thing the war in Ukraine has shown it is that nuclear power plants in times of war are an immediate risk and that any future nuclear power installations should take this risk into account during the construction and operational phases.
    mpweiher · 1790849840 · focus · HN ↗
    That is incorrect.
    What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -- Hitchen's Razor, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
    You made a claim that you did not support with any evidence whatsoever. Twice, actually.
    So it is you has to "do better than that", not me.
    In fact, I actually did go to the trouble of disproving your first unproven claim with actual data, which was more than I had to do. A simple "wrong" would have sufficed there as well.
    You just wiped that away with another completely unsupported and also wrong assertion.
    And if "all of the public figures" support your position, it would be trivial to actually cite that evidence. [Narrator: it won't, because they don't].
    Nuclear power is cheap, as the IEA data clearly shows, in addition to all the real-world evidence.
    And your point on the Ukraine war is also the exact opposite of the truth: if you actually look at the evidence, or ask the Ukrainians, you will find that nuclear power is what is keeping the country afloat, energy-wise.
    Which is why Ukraine has started construction of at least two more nuclear reactors during this war:
    <a href="https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-under-way-for-first-westinghouse-ap1000-in-uk" rel="nofollow">https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-under-way-f...
    And has ordered a total of nine AP-1000s
    <a href="https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/1169371.html" rel="nofollow">https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/1169371.html
    But hey, what do the Ukrainians know about nuclear power in Ukraine?
    hvb2 · 1790767030 · focus · HN ↗
    > Lowest LCOE by far is "nuclear LTO (Long Term Operation)".
    That's some serious cherry picking you're doing there.
    It also says: "The LCOE calculations also do not capture other systemic costs or externalities beyond plant-level CO2 emissions such as, for instance, methane leakage during the extraction and transport of natural gas."
    So we can just gloss over the nuclear waste problem. Which is especially interesting since the fossil plants will get a heavy hit due to their CO2 footprint.
    Because of how hazardous it is, every country treats that as a national issue thus offloading the cost to taxpayers. Besides, I'm only aware of a single country (Finland I believe) who is far along on an actual permanent storage location. The US for example still doesn't have one, until that exists the real cost simply isn't known.
    > And the various nuclear startups have cost projections that range from 2-3 cents to below 1 cent / kWh.
    Startups have cost projections, sure. That's marketing material until they've actually built something. I'm sure SMRs will soon be reality and we can see how much of it is actually true. Until then, take everything you read with a grain of salt.
    mpweiher · 1790786501 · focus · HN ↗
    > That's some serious cherry picking you're doing there.
    Please identify the cherry picking.
    > The LCOE calculations also do not capture other systemic costs or externalities beyond plant-level CO2 emissions such as, for instance, methane leakage during the extraction and transport of natural gas."
    Absolutely! When you consider full system costs, nuclear gets much, much better.
    With fossils, you have the minor externalities of climate change and other emissions, which are not taken into account.
    With intermittent renewables, you have the costs of their intermittency. Those system costs tend to rise with penetration, and dwarf the LCOE.
    For details in a model, see:
    <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222018035" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422...
    And this also plays out in real life: electricity prices are highest in countries with high intermittent renewables penetration. The correlation is quite strong. And the inverse correlation, from high penetration to low electricity costs simply does not exist. There are no countries (or states) with high penetration of intermittent renewables and low electricity prices.
    > So we can just gloss over the nuclear waste problem.
    The opposite is true. Nuclear is actually the only power source that has to account for its waste already in the LCOE cost. And it also turns out that the waste is one of the benefits of nuclear, at least compared to other sources of electricity: there is very, very little of it, we know how to store it safely without problems, it actually goes away by itself and it is valuable fuel.
    [Costs from 2-3 cents to below 1 cent]
    > Startups have cost projections, sure. That's marketing material until they've actually built something.
    Nope. Those numbers are usually the sorts of things they have to present investors to make their business case. People tend to vet those numbers pretty carefully before investing millions or billions of dollars. Also, if you lie in those numbers that turns out to be fraud and you can go to jail.
    In other news: "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future" -- Yogi Berra.
    kphorn · 1790777594 · focus · HN ↗
    Agree that if you run them for 40 or 60 years (1 renewal + 1 extension) it gets very affordable. Similar to data center, the economics are great if you take out construction costs. The problem is 40-60 years has proven to be a very long time in political and economic contexts, so on a practical basis many many plants are shut down prematurely and dont fulfill that useful life, increasing the cost of capital (bonds etc) to build the new plants and therefore LCOE.
    Totally agree that if you get a stable, reliable operating reactor it's very cheap. When people, politics, and the rest get in the way the actual costs drastically increase.
4. rayiner · 1790770690 · focus · HN ↗
  what is the timeline and cost for 300 MW of solar plus the battery back up to make it 24/7?
  1. testing22321 · 1790775651 · focus · HN ↗
    For fun, Gemini says between 1.1 and 3.8 billion, and 3-5 years.
    That number will decrease every month too.
    borodi · 1790777725 · focus · HN ↗
    The gemini solar project in Nevada is 700 MW power + 4 hours of batteries at 380MW and cost 1.9 billion. Took 2 years and that was in 2022
    rayiner · 1790777838 · focus · HN ↗
    Is 4 hours of battery an equivalent comparison to a nuclear plant?
    borodi · 1790778737 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not anti nuclear or anything like that. It's just the financial comparison one has to make. Currently competing with solar + batteries is hard since unlike SMRs which hypothetically will get cheaper, they are getting cheaper at a quick rate and don't have the history of cost overruns that nuclear does.
    rayiner · 1790784425 · focus · HN ↗
    I understand. My point simply is that the relevant price comparison is nuclear versus solar + enough batteries to make the solar plant equivalent to a nuclear plant. The battery system is the lynchpin of efforts to substitute solar for nuclear, and the cost/timeline of that should be factored in. But usually we just see an apples-to-oranges comparison of nuclear by itself and solar by itself.
    boelboel · 1790781146 · focus · HN ↗
    Somewhere like Arizona/Nevada I would say it's getting pretty equivalent, In PNW or midwest region it's not equivalent at all.
    vablings · 1790786787 · focus · HN ↗
    4 hours at full tilt is pretty good, assuming that for the same volume you can store double the power in the next 15 years that means that you can replace those cells at end of service life and end up with 8 years ect.
    mpweiher · 1790850723 · focus · HN ↗
    When looking at costs, you have to also take into account the lifetime of the plants.
    The current US plants are all getting extensions to 80 years of operation, and experts see no problems with going to 100.
    How many times do you have to fully replace the panels in that timeframe?
    How many times the batteries?
    And what about seasonal storage?
    triceratops · 1790873783 · focus · HN ↗
    > How many times do you have to fully replace the panels in that timeframe?
    3 times, assuming current panel lifetimes. The panels will be even cheaper by then and will likely be robotically installed.
    > How many times the batteries?
    Maybe 4 times? Same as the panels; they'll be cheaper and easier to replace.
    Maintaining and upgrading nuclear plants also has a cost. They don't last 100 years for free.
    > And what about seasonal storage?
    Might be unnecessary with enough overbuilding and grid interconnections. Or there might be cheaper storage technologies. Or batteries might become cheap enough that fewer duty cycles for season storage become economical.
    Timon3 · 1790881794 · focus · HN ↗
    > How many times do you have to fully replace the panels in that timeframe?
    You don't have to replace them. After 30 years the panels will still be producing >80% of their initial output.
    Of course it might be economical to replace them with newer panels, since solar tech is getting better every year. 30 years ago solar cost roughly $8/W of peak capacity (adjusted for inflation), and today were somewhere around $0.1 to $0.3 per watt. Assuming $0.25, that's a 32x increase.
    Imagine in 30 years we replace them with solar panels 32x as cost-effective as today's (and same for batteries, whatever the factor might be). How competitive does the nuclear plant look?
  2. Timon3 · 1790826402 · focus · HN ↗
    This reactor isn't going to provide 300 MW 24/7, so why is that a fair benchmark?
  3. myrmidon · 1790860019 · focus · HN ↗
    For 1.2GW in panels and 20GWh of batteries you'd currently pay about a billion for the panels and 2-3 billion for the batteries (price for a turn-key solution, not just cells). Assumptions:
    - 25% capacity factor for panels
    - 3 days of storage (at 300MW)
    - $120/kWh for storage
    - $1/W (peak) for panels
    I'd argue that such a setup is a big upgrade over the reactor since you have much higher peak power; you basically get more dispatchability at a comparable capacity factor (90%-ish). I suspect maintenance to be cheaper as well.
    But an actual solar setup would probably install more panels and less storage (giving you cheaper power at a lower capacity factor).
    Edit: The problem in practice for the nuclear reactor is that it has to be competitive with almost the panels alone, because otherwise your consumers are just gonna go "I wont buy nuclear energy 24/7, I'll just use much cheaper solar electricity whenever the sun shines, pay maybe for a few hours of batteries and fall back to gas when I really need to (very cheap per peak MW, but not per MWh)".
    If you want to be fully paid for constant power output, you have to be fully competitive at all times, not just when the sun is down.
5. idiotsecant · 1790771368 · focus · HN ↗
  I'll take that bet. Care to formalize?
  1. amanaplanacanal · 1790780056 · focus · HN ↗
    Probably the best way would be for you to pick your numbers, and payout to whoever gets closest.
6. m4ck_ · 1790783563 · focus · HN ↗
  Id want to see who’s funding it before betting. If it’s all private capital, that sounds fair. If its backed by direct government investment or better yet, rate payer increases, my money is they fart around for a decade or so and then the project goes belly up due to poor planning and ballooning costs. and the execs walk away much richer.

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