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> Constellation, which plans to spend about $1.6 billion to restart the plant, is awaiting permits and expects the facility to come online by 2028 [and] would provide Microsoft with 835 megawatts of energy.

I don't quite understand how this makes sense financially for Microsoft. A 1 GW offshore wind farm costs about 1 billion [1]. The Gemini Solar + Battery Storage Project in Nevada is about 1.1 billion (690 MW + 380 MW battery). [2]

With solar, wind and battery prices continuously trending downwards, how does it make sense to invest in nuclear which nearly always has cost overruns, bad PR and unknown potential future costs?

[1] https://businessnorway.com/articles/cost-of-wind-turbines [2] https://commercialsolarguy.com/americas-first-gigawatt-solar...

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As some with contact to the the nuclear industry:

These old plants are ridden with hidden costs, and I would bet all of my money no one at Microsoft is aware of the scale of this. I'm not talking "hidden costs" like you didn't do your homework. I'm talking hidden costs like you need to be on the inside, on the ground, to know about. Hidden costs like "everyone subtly nods but doesn't say it out loud" kind of hidden costs.

The NRC has beyond suffocating regulation for nuclear energy. This is maybe a good thing in some regards. But let me put it this way:

Imagine you bought a car from 1975 and could _only_ put in original parts. Need a new battery? Better find out how to get a factory one from 1975. Can't get one from 1975? Be prepared to pay millions, perhaps tens of millions, for a mountain of testing and certification for a new $100 part that is still just an off the shelf battery.

But the actual investor is Constellation, which has operated the plant for decades. Microsoft is just committing to buy power.

Are you suggesting Constellation will be surprised at the hidden costs?

It's hard to say without knowing the details of the contract. I highly doubt Constellation put themselves in a position to be vulnerable to cost overruns. Or perhaps they see the deal as a shiny pendant they can dangle in front of dumb PE money when they want to cash out in the future.

Trust me, cynicism is well warranted with these ancient plants.

All of the articles say the deal is Microsoft agreeing to buy power for 20 years. It's possible that's wrong/incomplete, but it would be weird. Constellation's stock rose 20%, so the market at least thinks they'll make decent money on it.

And it may be an "ancient plant" but it was operational 5 years ago, under Constellation's management.

How many MWH does that battery array store? MW is a useless number for energy storage. HN should know better.

Edit:

The article linked states:

> Roughly, one could assume that the energy storage portion of the project – 1.4 GWh worth

So, at the 690GW (which is unrealistic) nameplate capacity of the solar field, they are installing roughly 120 minutes worth of energy storage to back it. This is actually a better number than most projects I've seen, but still utterly inadequate and representative of the typical project.

Battery arrays aren't primarily rated for their storage capacity but for their ability to provide/consume power.

At the moment the goal of battery storage additions to solar plants is to soften their peak power production and broaden the time they provide power to extend to the morning and dinner time.

690 MW.

Right. So a useless number when it comes to energy storage discussions. It simply extends the duck curve an hour or three before you need use someone else’s power.

Thanks for the correction on GW vs MW. Not a great typo.

> A 1 GW offshore wind farm costs about 1 billion

A 1 GW offshore wind farm does not produce anywhere close to 1 GW most of the time.

A 1 GW nuclear reactor can produce 1 GW 90%+ of the time, with the downtime being _scheduled_ maintenance.

Nuclear plants trip off all the time. It was a big problem in one of Texas' recent cold snaps where people died.

And many of those nuclear down times are for month+ times. Good luck getting enough batteries to get through that!

Offshore wind typically has a capacity factor of ~50%. Add a smaller number of batteries than you would need for nuclear, and it's going to be cost competitive against any new build.

As far as if it's cost competitive with TMI, I'm not so sure. New build nuclear is likely going to be >$190/MWh. Running the numbers being bandied about for the "Pennsylvania GDP increase", which is a really funny way to say "cost of the electricity for 20 years," and you get $115/MWh. Which is really pricy still. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to get TMI going again, just that it's pricy, and there's likely lots of other constraints that went into deciding to do this.

You'd need to adjust those for capacity factor, but I wondered the same thing.

The AI space seems to have weird overlaps with nuclear that I don't quite get.

Not sure if it's just the social circles the AI people run in.

Zuckerberg was all excited on a podcast about how energy was the limiting factor for AI, waited for him to say something about how cheap and fast rollouts of renewables made sense but no, nuclear. Even this refurb is talking minimum 4 years to get going. All very strange.

Maybe the lead time is faster because refurbishing a plant is easier than building one from scratch? Just speculating but that comes to mind for me. If their need is immediate term then this could be the "throw some money at the problem to make it go away".

Also maybe good for PR?

I doubt that anything that connects to the name "Three Mile Island" is going to be good for PR.

No one died from the incident at Three Mile Island, so I hope that with better access to information people can be persuaded to change their minds.

Not to mention this nuclear reactor was only shut down in 2019. They're upgrading and recommissioning something that was mothballed because the economics didn't work, all of five years ago.

People reacting to the name are imagining that this means re-opening the other unit, which melted down in 1979. It's more fun to imagine and react to that than to learn that this was an operational plant until a few years ago.

>I doubt that anything that connects to the name "Three Mile Island" is going to be good for PR.

This. I'm surprised they didn't figure out a way to rename the place first.

It makes no sense. Bill Gates is a huge nuclear proponent for bad reasons and I'm sure somehow this is related, wherher it's just that Microsoft decision makers have read his bad takes or because he actually pushed for this terrible idea.

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