Hinkley Point C nuclear plant to run £2.9bn over budget

And I don’t think that £92.50 price includes these cost overruns. £92.50/MWh is the price the government was willing to guarantee, but which left the developer responsible for cost overruns. But for the next generation plants the developers want the government to take on the risk.

The £40/MWh offshore wind bids are less than the cost just to run existing gas plants, mainly the fuel cost, which means you’re actually saving money by adding wind alongside a gas generator. Such a system will make it difficult to get above a certain percentage of renewables because of the need for gas backup, but maybe we should be spending money on developing new storage technology to facilitate wind and solar with predictable falling costs, rather than on deploying nuclear where the costs seem to be consistently high.

While it seems odd that over 50 years ago we could build them quickly, I suspect one of the main drivers of cost is the need to make them bomb proof sic from a safety point of view.

With the sums involved, you'd have to say wouldn't the money be better spent in research on alternatives? Either renewable/energy storage systems, or more money for nuclear fusion rather than 20 million here and there[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... [2] https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-pledges-20m-nuclear...

When we build more reactors our processes will improve. Just like Korea, Japan, and France.

Fortunately the Chinese ones in Taishan were delivered quite on time & budget this year.

It's sad to see all these issues with execution, doing a bad press for nuclear - while we really need more of it to decarbonize our electricity (at least in the mid-term).

This is the problem with the approche taken in the Western world for nuclear. A few were built a long time ago, then the industry mostly went in decline and then in the modern day a few individual projects were greenlit.

Nuclear was always only cost effective when you build many of them. As in the early expention of US nuclear, or in France.

Nuclear in an effect produce to much power, a country like Switzerland (where I am from) would only need to build one every 10-20 years for all the electicity needs and that will never be cost effective.

Even worse, each country historically has its own designs that they want to push. Today you could probebly be cost competitve if you let China or South Korea bill some reactors, but that will not happen in the West. France, Britain, US, Russia, Germany all want or wanted their own reactors.

The nuclear industry will not be saved by these mega projects, but if its safed at all, it will be newer reactors that can be build smaller. The pure size, complexity and regulatory requirments, plus the interest rate absolutly kill anybody that is trying to build a Gen III reactor.

I love nuclear and had envoirmental movement focused on pushed for them we would have had a viable solution for climate change back then. We see this in France, they had green power for almost as long as the debate existed and provided a clear model that somehow nobody else adopted rather talking about wind and solar for decades.

Wind and Solar are still very questionable while nuclear was ready 30 years ago. Now it is slowly changing but we lost lots of time.

Maybe one of the new nuclear technologies that is being worked on will turn out to be a help in the new world. But I am not going to wait.

If you look back at the history of nuclear construction, at least in the US, late and massively over budget is the norm. Late and over budget are closely tied together, of course, as it's all about project management and that's not trivial at this scale. This sort of typical overrun is why US utilities stopped building more nuclear in the 80s.

Today, I still believe the technology, but I doubt about its practicality, both financially and politically.

1. If we do a cost-benefit analysis, we must realize that the political resistance of the nuclear power plant is parts of its cost, it doesn't matter whether the anti-nuclear politicians or activists are correct or not, in either way, it simply adds to the cost of the project. Sometimes the cost is serious - the complete halt of the project is not out of the possibilities, and it means billions of tax dollars are wasted on useless projects.

2. Also, the strong pressure and paranoia on its safety, both from the public, and from the engineers, is sometimes responsible for the escalating costs of the projects, as more and more safety upgrades are implemented over time. I'm not saying that safety is not important, but it means there are hidden costs. And because safety is paramount, you can't just ignore them,

e.g. a safety risk is discovered in incident X, to avoid similar problems, all the XYZ reactors must be upgraded!

e.g. the nuclear reactor Y has an minor anomaly Z, it's believed that the issue is not a big deal, but for safety, the reactors are switched off until the reason is determined! (6 months later) Engineers have determined the issue is a completely normal phenomenon within the design! (3 months later) The executive/legislative body finally allowed the reactors to be restarted...

Just think about how much economic damage is done in this process... Worse, any such problems, even it was the direct result of being safety-minded, will be attacked by the anti-nuclear activists and politicians, further contributing to problem No.1, make the cost even greater.

3. In addition, a nuclear power plant requires highly competent personnels, companies and regulatory agencies to run and monitor. Mismanagement due to incompetency can make its safety risks much higher than the projected risks. It's not a big problem if it's operated with a good record of safety in some countries with a government that has a relatively good public image, but in other countries it's a big problem. I've once asked a networking engineer from Taiwan about the nuclear protests over the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant, he said he was against the project, not because he doesn't believe the technology (which is the most common reason in the anti-nuclear movement), but that he has no confidence that the miserable government is competent enough to operate it.

4. Furthermore, the political resistance of deep underground nuclear waste disposal repository is even higher. One should realize that currently there are already thousands buckets of nuclear waste waiting for proper disposal, and without a deep underground repository, by doing nothing, the risks for the environment is much more higher. Unfortunately, as long as the political resistance exists, it adds a huge cost to everything nuclear. Not to mention the environmental risks of continue producing more nuclear waste without a repository.

5. Finally, even in China - one of the biggest supporters of nuclear power - the ambitious construction projects are slowing down due to reason No.1 and No.2, despite that the political resistance is not a big problem in its authoritarian political system. Competition of cheap solar and wind is another reason.

> China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.

> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-...

I'm really uncertain about everything now. What is your opinion regarding my observations?

It's similar to how the fossil fuels based externalities are also never included in the true cost.