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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

10% is practically negligible when the power is coming from cheap wind power on the plains.

The 1200 mile Xiangjiaba–Shanghai HVDC line in China has transmission losses "well under 7%" [1]. This line was also completed almost three years ahead of schedule, which is an excellent contrast to Western nuclear plants that are being constructed in China. But then, nobody knows how to complete the AP1000 or EPR on time or on budget, as far as I can tell.

Lots of HVDC lines are going to be essential for cheap power in the US in the future, I just hope the political will materializes for that.

[1] http://3phasepower.blogspot.com/2010/08/xiangjiaba-shanghai-...

Edit: corrected the nuclear comparison.

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> EPR on time or on budget

Sure, on one hand, this kind of project is likely to get into cost overruns. On the other hand, Areva looks like a fairly dysfunctional company following the tenure of Anne Lauvergeon, so it's not only a technical problem.

It's also the AP1000 from Westinghouse, not just Areva. There are definitely deep problems at the senior management level down to project management down to QA on welds with Westinghouse. I haven't followed Areva.

At least for the EPR they are building in Finland, AFAIU a lot of the delays and subsequent cost overruns have been due to stuff like poor welds or poorly done concrete that has to be redone. Really basic stuff that one would assume that a company that is building a nuclear power plant could handle, but, alas, apparently not. Of course, Areva is claiming that it's just the Finnish nuclear safety inspectors who are being overly nitpicky.

Yes, nuclear advocates in the US love to blame regulators and ignore the incompetency of their own industry too. There's a new report out today highlighting that at the South Carolina project that was just cancelled, there was an internal report highlighting lack of plans, unconstructable plans, low morale, and high turnover. And that the project was likely to fail. Three months after the report, an additional $800M was requested, and then 18 months later it was cancelled.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/newly-released-report-hig...

Such behavior seems to be borderline criminal, particularly covering up the internal audit.

Yet this is par for the course on nuclear these days.

A lot of our problems are technically solvable with very near term technology. Yet we choose not to do it.

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