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Comment by mixdup | Hacker News Reader

I mean it is, there is a project in Georgia for a new 1.4GW natural gas plant that has a $3.3 billion budget

But, the $5 billion here isn't purely an investment in 300 MW of capacity, it's an investment in starting up the nuclear reactor factory that can start churning these things out at $1-2 billion or whatever their goal may be

Also, have to take into consideration the overall operating costs. Nuclear costs significantly more up front but over time costs much less to operate (and is much more predictable) because you don't have to buy and burn natural gas forever

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Those projected future savings are to be greeted with considerable skepticism. They are not locked in by contracts. They are the kinds of projections we've seen all too often fall apart in nuclear.

The underlying mechanic here is that cost projections are being used to sell a technology. As such, there is very strong incentive to underestimate the costs. This applies to FOAK plants and to projected experience rates.

The one thing that low carbon grids around the world share is high portion of nuclear (or hydro, which you can't build unless it naturally exists). Therefore, the only thing a SMR cost should be compared to is other nuclear reactors. Natural Gas may be cheaper (startup cost), may be more expensive (ongoing fuel), or will definitely be more expensive (carbon in the atmosphere doesn't go away), but regardless there is no reason to compare nuclear to natgas.

> The one thing that low carbon grids around the world share is high portion of nuclear (or hydro, which you can't build unless it naturally exists).

This is an historical artifact. When that generating capacity was built, nuclear was the alternative to fossil fuels. It isn't today; renewables are now cheaper and faster to install.

Your argument can be seen as a way to ignore the cost decline of renewables without at first glance doing so.

(As you say, there are hydro-dominated grids with no nuclear, for example Costa Rica, which gets 98% of its electrical energy from renewables.)

I was responding to the thread, which is comparing nuclear to natural gas.

Comparing to renewables is a different story - it can be done but it's much more complex (not dispatchable, seasonally variable) but certainly renewables makes sense in some or many places, (and in all places for a portion of the supply). I'm all in favour as long as it is actually done with the intent of getting to zero CO2, and doesn't just stall when it gets to the more difficult part of the transition. So many places get to 50% annual generation as renewable and throw up their hands about the remainder and leave it on coal/oil/natural gas

> I was responding to the thread, which is comparing nuclear to natural gas.

It's comparing nuclear to alternatives, one of which is natural gas. Others are renewables. One cannot make or justify a decision on nuclear without considering all the alternatives.

Weather dependent renewables (wind, solar) are not an alternative to nuclear, even when they are perceived in this way by the public.

From point of view of an electrical grid operator only wind/solar+fossil are alternative to nuclear, if you want to maintain stable electric grid without blackout or rolling blackouts.

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

all cost modeling for nuclear takes this into account into the $/mwh of power. Fuel is cheap, but you have to pay back the enormous construction capex over time through power sales. Plus, staffing, security, insurance and maintaince are massive ongoing costs. Nukes remain the most expensive way to generate power.

The only cheap nuclear watts come from facilities built a long time ago in a completely different cost environment, and had construction and insurance subsidized by the state.

Natural gas plants all have security, insurance, maintenance, and staffing. Of course there are different levels of those but those costs are not unique to nuclear plants

Large natural gas plants have about 0.05 employees per MW. Nuclear plants have 0.5 to 1.0 employees per MW.

imagine how that number can be decreased as the plants are smaller, standardized, and more numerous. you can likely get a lot more efficiency out of the workforce when an engineer or operator can work across a dozen of these in a 200 mile radius instead of just one in the whole country. plus you need fewer training staff etc

Making plants smaller increases the number of employees per MW. Standardized might reduce the cost of construction, but how would it reduce the number of employees needed?

>but how would it reduce the number of employees needed?

A standardized reactor design that doesn't need a bespoke training control room at every single site means fewer training staff. It means the same maintenance workers and compliance workers and everyone else can be utilized more because they can cover more facilities instead of just the single site they are certified on and work at

or, you put a bunch of these small plants in one physical location and you get even more efficiency out of the workforce - only one facilties management crew, only one security team. And you'd even save money on just having one grid connection. Oh wait...

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