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Comment by mpweiher | Hacker News Reader

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_boiling_water_reactor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Pow...

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?

View on HN

Sadly, the ABWR has also proven to be unreliable and uneconomic.

Hitachi spent most of the 2010s trying to get a couple of them underway in the UK (which has a generally favourable regulatory environment) but eventually pulled out after 12 years with £2bn spent and nothing built.

Maybe the BWRX will have better luck - but I'd not want to stake any money on it myself.

> Sadly, the ABWR has also proven to be unreliable and uneconomic.

Citation needed.

> Hitachi spent most of the 2010s trying to get a couple of them underway in the UK

That's not evidence of them being uneconomic or unreliable.

> (which has a generally favourable regulatory environment)

Excuse me? The regulatory environment that is responsible for the 7000 design changes at Hinkley Point C and thus most of the eye-watering delays and cost overruns? The regulatory environment that required the £ 700 million "fish disco" that will save a few salmon at a cost of around £ 280000 per fish?

A series of "radical, root-cause solutions" is required to simplify the UK's nuclear regulatory system in order to speed up the construction of new nuclear projects at a lower cost and on time, an independent taskforce has concluded.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/radical_reforms_...

I think that when people casually pronounce a bet like that, they generally mean even odds. If they meant something else they'd likely say so explicitly.

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.

> 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?

Yes. Most nuclear power plants are (highly) profitable and not subsidized.

That's counter to everything I've read. Any evidence?

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.

Thanks. Do you know if that that includes initial costs like construction - have they paid for themselves?

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY

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.

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.

https://cpmi.illinois.edu

Professor David Ruzic, head of that department, to be precise.

https://npre.illinois.edu/people/profile/druzic

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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