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...

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