Nuclear - future for Ireland?

cnocbui

I'd love to see a debate between cap'tn midnight and Sabine, even though the winner would be a foregone conclusion and goes under their real name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsBiC9HjyQ

Markcheese

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ontario-announces-c2-bln-refurbishment-pickering-nuclear-plant-2024-01-30/

Interesting that a 3 billion refurb should get an extra 30 years , but some of the figures seem a bit sketchy including the number of people who'll be working in the plant after refurb

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701186#Comment_121701186

Like most of the claims from the nuclear industry they don't match real world timelines.

First of all there's the assumption that plants will be constructed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reactors_in_the_United_States

The actual construction times for the 10 most recent US nuclear reactors are :

19 years Limerick 2 1970 - 1989

14 years Seabrook 1 1976 - 1990

16 years Commanche Peak 1 1974 - 1990

19 years Commanche Peak 3 1974 - 1993

23 years Watts Bar 1 1973 - 1996

43 years Watts Bar 2 1973 - 2016

Infinity Summer-1 Abandoned 2017 ~$10Bn

Infinity Summer-2 Abandoned 2017

14 years Vogtle 3 - 2009 - 2023

15 years Vogtle 4 - 2009 - 2024 (still under construction)

Note : you can add years for planning to the above timelines.

Vogtle costs have gone from $14Bn to $35Bn and counting. (But not counting 8 years of paying for total replacement power)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-american-nuclear-reactor-built-112242795.html?guccounter=1

The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn’t include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion.

The third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016 when construction began in 2009.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701730#Comment_121701730

It`s less than half that cost at €1.4 Bn and the 11,000 workers is the number employed during refurbishment not after from what I can see from that report.

2 GW with a capacity factor over 90% and a 30 year lifespan for €1.4 Bn is a bargain.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703475#Comment_121703475

Yeah , its 2 billion canadian dollars , for an approx 10 year rebuild , it does say 11,000 workers for the rebuild but then says 6 thousand odd to run the plant ..

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701186#Comment_121701186

That was a great video - well worth watching , it does show what can be done , but it also shows what isnt done ,

that is how nuclear reactors are built since the late 70s in Europe and america ,

Ireland wont be the country to change that , - we don't have a nuclear industry,and wont have , ( even if we went nuclear, we'd be building probably a max of 3 or 4 reactors total, )

The designs from the early 70s wouldnt get approval in europe now , and companies seem to be struggling to find a design that they can bang out at speed ,

Westinghouse turned into a basket case , nearly sinking toshiba after they bought it , by this stage it basically owned most of the american ,british ,swedish and italian nuclear industries ,

Siemens seem to have gotten out of nuclear entirely ,

French manufacturer ,Areva went bankrupt in 2017 ( i think ) having to be rescued ,and bought by EDF,

Little ireland isnt going to change any of that...

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703766#Comment_121703766

No idea where they came up with 6,000 to run the plant. Normally it takes 500 - 800 in total. The U.S. has 94 commercial reactors and employs less than 100,000. Perhaps they were adding in secondary jobs as well to come to that 6,000. Either way, good for the local economy. Something that adds to their popularity in France.

Whatever way you look at it it is great value. €1.4 Bn. for 2 GW with a capacity factor of over 90% for 30 years. For that price offshore wind would not get you 1/2 a GW with half the capacity factor and less of a lifetime.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121704918#Comment_121704918

To be honest , if it comes in at those numbers i'd be ... Surprised, its a 10 year ( for a refurb project ? -projected to employ over 11000 workers over the life of the life of the project , canada isnt a low cost country -

But if they can do it i'm sure EDF have a life time of work for them between the UK and france , adding up to 30 years of production to worn out stations would be huge

josip

Why can that Canadian NPP be refurbed cost-effectively and other NPPs can't?

Is it purely down to the reactor design or do other factors come in to play as well?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121705017#Comment_121705017

If it came in at double the price it would still be 50% cheaper than offshore wind could provide the same quantity for.

A lot of countries are looking at extending the lifespan of their nuclear plants in a similar way to Canada. Even California is extending the life of it`s Diablo Canyon plant. Not that they had many options with their electricity supply under pressure

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121705017#Comment_121705017

The figures are probably based on their recent experience refurbishing a previous 5 reactors, so it's unlikely the figures are far fetched or based on unrealistic expectations.

To date, five reactors have been refurbished in Canada:

Pickering Unit 1

Pickering Unit 4

Bruce A Unit 1

Bruce A Unit 2

Point Lepreau

All the lessons learned from these projects are integrated into future refurbishment projects.

Markcheese

https://www.tvo.org/article/the-pickering-nuclear-refurbishment-is-the-path-of-least-resistance-for-clean-energy

This just popped up on my feed - it seems the numbers from the original article may have been - a teensy bit off ..

So 2 billion canadian is for the advance works - before they decide wether to keep going with the refurb ..

Which will likely cost 10 billion ( canadian )

Not sure how many reactors that covers ..

Pickering b has 4 reactors .. so i assume all 4 ?

cnocbui

That's about €6.88 billion.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121706283#Comment_121706283

At €3.44 per GW, taking into account the capacity factor is still only half the price that offshore generation would cost.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121704918#Comment_121704918

I'm mostly in favour of extending the life of existing nuclear plant - but let's not pretend it's "good value".

It's only "value" if it can deliver kWh of energy at competitive prices - people pay for energy, not capacity factors. Capital investment is only one component of the cost of delivering electricity. Operating costs for nuclear are more than an order of magnitude higher than offshore wind. Your nuclear plant requires employing around 1,000 highly skilled specialists to run - so payroll of at least 200m a year, never mind the cost of security.

As an example of an existing nuclear facility being unable to compete because of these huge operating costs, Indian Point shutdown 2 years ago, before end-of-life. So even with capital cost of ZERO, nuclear's huge operating costs means it struggles (and often fails) to compete in modern liberalized markets. The owners decided to walk since it cost more to just keep the plant running than it could make selling electricity.

This is the fundamental problem about nuclear - it's uncompetitive - and no amount of picking out specific stats changes this, all that counts is the overall cost per MWh. It hasn't always been the case but it is at this point in history - particularly since most modern electricity markets in the west have been liberalised - which happened about 20 years ago in the EU. Investment decisions are no longer made by government ministers or by state monopolies where cost/benefit is not the primary factor. These days investment decisions are made by private investors and none - anywhere in the world - are willing to touch nuclear with a barge poll. What's funny is seeing the likes of EDF simultaneously try to sell/talk-up their reactor technology proposition to governments while doing absolutely everything in their power to avoid getting involved in any direct investment in foreign nuclear plants. Kinda like a gambler trying to sell you "tips" that are promised to make money but refuses to bet on the tips themselves.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121690597#Comment_121690597

Planning for only 2 of 9 to be offline isn't how nuclear power performs in the real world.

Japan, France, Germany and the UK have all had more than 2 of 9 reactors offline at the same time. Japan wins with at least 40 offline for the thirteenth year in a row, France had 26 offline during a gas shortage.

Korea had 7 of 24 offline. Another time it was 10 of 23.

A reminder that like solar and wind, nuclear is absolutely dependent on backup. Our grid can handle 375MW going offline but it can't handle 1.6GW doing that.

The UK have 4 of 9 reactors offline at present for steam valve issues. That's a third of the UK's nuclear power for February's already gone because of non-planned outages. January was had a lot of reactors offline with power varying from 4.7GW down to 2.7GW average in the order of 3.5GW. Nuclear is not a dependable solution for dark calm days, or gas embargoes.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121716721#Comment_121716721

Japan's nuclear plants are offline for the same reason a car stops working when you turn it off.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121716792#Comment_121716792

In theory they could just turn on most of them again.

In practice this the thirteenth year in a row that 10% of the world's nuclear power reactors have stayed off. You can add all of the German and Italian reactors to the list of reactors that have stayed off for reasons that have nothing to economics or reliability.

In the UK and the US they've closed reactors ahead of schedule for reasons of economics such as it wasn't worth doing the maintenance to extend their lives.

cnocbui

The Czech Republic has announced it will construct 4 1.2 GW reactors by 2050. It already has six in a country with a population. 10.5 million.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769455#Comment_121769455

Six. If you don't count Temelín 3 and 4 that were cancelled in 1990 after 5 years construction.

Plans for them reopened in 2005 , then there was an EIS and then they were finally approved in 2009 then delayed to 2013 with a consortium including Westinghouse (different company pre bankruptcy) excluded for not meeting statutory requirements.

A different consortium including Atomstroyexport (Russian) got that contract in 2013 and then cancelled again in 2014.

The announcement you are referring to was back in March 2022 and back to square one.

The idea was to be able to sell nuclear electricity on a 30 year fixed price contact.

The reality is that since 1976 the cost per watt of solar modules has dropped an average of 24.4% every time global production doubled. Since 2006 when China started mass production each doubling of shipments now averages a 39.3% fall in cost. It's an insane learning curve , and with thinner silicon and thinner glass, bifacial modules, better anti reflective coatings, electrical conductive adhesives / shingling / thinner interconnects, and larger panels and replacing aluminium frames there's still more cost reductions in the pipeline.

Markcheese

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/16/edf-hinkley-point-c-delays-cost-overruns

While this isnt great, its not as bad as it first sounds , a lot of the extra cost is from inflation , and the price they eventually recieve is linked to inflation .. being years late is expensive though ,as the iextra interest paid for those years is rather massive -

This was always going to be a bit of a loss leader - with EDF banking on the systems and staff training ,project management skills on this site to transfer to sizewell and then others - wether that happens with Chinese cash removed from the future equation,is anyones guess-

The boss of centrica want to get involved in funding sizewell as well

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24122986.centrica-boss-says-fund-suffolk-plant-sizewell-c/

josip

Good news for SMRs. I'd like to see them succeed, but until they do, I'll remain optimistic more so than confident.

https://newatlas.com/energy/nuclear-reactor-weld-one-day/

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121797984#Comment_121797984

Old news. Since 2022 many of the SMR projects have stalled because they were relying on Russian fuel. NuScale laid off 30% of their workforce last month.

From the company's website https://www.sheffieldforgemasters.com/

Sheffield Forgemasters has also pioneered the development and industrialisation of Electron Beam Welding. In 2022 the company weld-joined two 200 mm thick, three-meter diameter vessel sections in UK-SMR nuclear grade steel. The weld, equivalent to approximately 10m of length, was completed in a single pass and in just 140 minutes. A weld of this requirement would traditionally take months, including numerous stages of NDT and heat-treatment.

gjim

Nuscale is finished and I predict will fold or go bust within a year.

Their partner (Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems) have walked away so they have no actual project to work on any more.

I mean $9.3B construction cost for 300MW? This is insane - and that's just the capital costs. Basic physics dictates that smaller reactors are always less efficient than larger ones.

And now their investors are suing them saying they “made materially false and/or misleading statements and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects.”

I've little sympathy for the investors to be honest. The idea of civilian SMRs being able to generate electricity at competitive prices is simply ludicrous when you look into it.

gjim

Here's what the market thinks of nuscale's prospects:

That's more than a 80% drop from peak in little over a year.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800768#Comment_121800768

The lower efficiency of SMR's vs large reactors is an economic irrelevance if the hoped for decrease in build times eventuates. Efficiency matters most when the cost of fuel is a significant factor, such as with fossil fuel based energy generation, which is not the case with nuclear, it's a minor cost compared to the capital construction cost.

Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, though capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants and much greater than those for gas-fired plants.

I'm fairly certain all the thousands of engineers involved in SMR development would be aware of the reduced efficiency, but equally cognizant of it's irrelevance.

gjim

You really should read the article. The reason UAMPS pulled out was because they couldn't find anyone to commit to buying the electricity at the projected price. The closer anyone gets to actually building an SMR, the sooner they realise that SMRs cannot produce electricity at price anyone is willing to pay.

Thermal inefficiency isn't just reflected in the cost of the raw fuel. Worse efficiency means for every MWh produced you have elevated costs not only for purchasing the fuel but for more fuel transport, security, handling, waste handling/storage and disposal expenses. And worse again, you have almost the same headcount to run a 300MW plant as a 1GW one - which is exactly why the entire industry has been moving to bigger and bigger reactors over the last few decades.

You could by a built and working nuclear plant like Indian Point for $0 and still lose money which is why it's been shut down before end-of-life and nobody has stepped up to accept a "free" nuclear plant.

The fact that engineers have been working for civilian SMRs is meaningless. The DoE in the US has poured $4B in subsidies for SMR and other nuclear development in the last few years. With grants like that available, there's no wonder someone will hire a bunch of engineers. I know lots of engineers (I'm one myself) and I know of some working in well funded companies on nonsense ideas - like carbon capture from the atmosphere. The fact that engineers are working on it, doesn't change the basic laws of physics and thermodynamics or even common sense.

You missed the fact that Nuscale are being sued for lying about the potential of their SMR design, its viability in the market and the costs? They're a bunch of grifters and the market has seen through their bs which is why their stock has tanked and is heading to zero.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121716423#Comment_121716423

Where is this nuclear power plant that employs 1,000 staff and has a wage bill of €200 million a year, an average salary of €200,000?

An entry level nuclear power plant operator in the U.K. (1 -3 years experience) earns an average of £35,093. A senior level operator (8+ years experience) £60,962. That is an average of £49,280 (Source : salaryexpert.com) That is one quarter of your figure.

I do not see how you figure capacity factor has nothing to do with the price of energy. To me that is like saying for E=MC2 the value of M does not matter.

If you have one generation source with double the capacity factor of another it will supply double the volume. And that is before taking into consideration the lifespan of both. Especially if there is no major difference in CapEx and one has 3X times the lifespan of the other.

The refurbished Canadian nuclear power plant CapEx is €3.44 Bn per GW with a capacity factor of 94% ( €3.66 Bn per GW) Dogger Bank offshore U.K. wind farm has a Capex of €10.5 for 3.6 GW with a capacity factor of 47% ( €6.20 Bn per GW). So even with the same lifespan the Canadian nuclear plant will be considerably cheaper. Around 70%.

I don`t see that EDF are doing absolutely everything to not get involved in foreign nuclear plants. FAIR they recently tendered for the Polish plants, and with just having posted a profit of €10 Bn for 2023 I don`t see them too worried about selling tips to earn a crust.

Investment decision are still being made by governments in nuclear. France, Sweden, Finland, and Poland etc in just Europe alone.

gjim

There were over 40,000 employed across the 54 nuclear plants in the USA in 2023. So 750 FTE per plant - my higher figure of about 1000 was headcount rather than FTE.

The non-fuel, non-finance/capital cost of running these 54 nuclear plants was just over $16B in 2023 - so on average $300m per plant. The idea that you multiply base salary by FTE to get payroll costs is daft - even for simple office work, you generally double the salary to get staff costs. Providing a working environment for a nuclear plant employee is obviously going to be far more expensive - see https://nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/reports-and-briefs/Nuclear-Costs-in-Context-2021.pdf - about 80% of the non-fuel operating costs are staff costs. Averaged across the sector in the USA, this means about about $240m per facility.

Capacity factor has NOTHING to do with the cost of energy - people buy ENERGY, not capacity factors, operating temperatures, capital costs, or any other metric. A MWh from a solar panel with a capacity factor of 11% sells for the exact same amount as a MWh from a nuclear plant operating with a 90% capacity factor.

Comparing capital cost of off-shore wind vs nuclear is equally daft - which is why we use LCOE for comparison. The operating costs per MWh are about 5c for wind and over 30c for nuclear (USA numbers).

There's more talk about investing in nuclear than doing it: Hinckley C will the the last UK new facility built because to make the project viable at all they've been given a guarantee of 35 years of index linked price for their production of £128/MWh (2022 prices) - this is insane given the average wholesale cost of electricity. I'm not sure naming France supports you either - Flamanville 3, the only current EDF project in France is 6 times over budget and 12 years late and has been described as a mess by the current minister (https://montelnews.com/news/1133707/french-epr-is-a-mess--energy-minister). Finland also a disaster - Olkiluoto 3 being 14 years late and 3 times over budget and already plagued with issues with the steam reheater and feedwater pumps. Poland are just talking - there isn't even a proposal yet.

Investment in nuclear globally has fallen off a cliff since its 1980s peak. In the 1980s net 185GW of nuclear capacity was added globally, in the 2010s this number was 17GW, so far in the 2020s even that modest gain has been wiped out as nuclear is being abandoned globally and 22GW has been lost since 2020.

Here's a list of US reactors which have been abandoned in the last 10 years. ALL of these were fully operational, all had years to go before projected end-of-life, NONE required any capital investment to continue operations, yet the operators decided to turn them off and walk away. Low wholesale electricity prices and high operational costs for nuclear meant they were losing $ for every MWh produced:

• Kewaunee Wisconsin - 2013
• Vermont Yankee Vermont - 2014
• Fort Calhoun Nebraska - 2016
• Pilgrim Massachusetts - 2019
• Three Mile Island 1 Pennsylvania - 2019
• Duane Arnold Iowa - 2020
• Indian Point 2 New York - 2020
• Indian Point 3 New York - 2021

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805674#Comment_121805674

So what you are saying is that refurbishing nuclear is cheaper than building offshore wind if you ignore almost all the costs of building the plant and getting it up and running and connected to the grid etc. etc. ?

To compare like with like you'd have to compare the refurb costs for offshore wind. Mostly blades, generators, gearboxes and electronics. And only the blades and electronics may need to be replaced the others are can be refurbished.