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. 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.

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