this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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The first US nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by Madison_rogue@kbin.social to c/news@kbin.social
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ATLANTA (AP) — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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[–] Wirrvogel@feddit.de 17 points 2 years ago (15 children)

The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn’t include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion.

The third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016 when construction began in 2009.

A reactor that starts being built today will cost way more and will be delayed way more than these and they are already at least 14 years in the making not counted for the planning phase and 7 years late to be producing power and no they are not fully powered yet, because it takes another 1-2 years to get them to full power, not to mention drought and war threats.

Nuclear will not play any role in fighting climate change. A reactor starting planning today will most likely just replace an old model that is falling apart and to dismantle that and keep the parts safe somewhere costs another fortune.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The future won't be these massive reactors, they'll be the small modular ones that can be built in a factory and brought to location.

Lots of smaller micro grids that will be substantially easier to bring online

[–] Wirrvogel@feddit.de 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/30/small-modular-reactors-produce-high-levels-nuclear-waste/

“Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). “These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.”

and

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/18/the-nuclear-fallacy-why-small-modular-reactors-cant-compete-with-renewable-energy/

“Small modular reactors won’t achieve economies of manufacturing scale, won’t be faster to construct, forego efficiency of vertical scaling, won’t be cheaper, aren’t suitable for remote or brownfield coal sites, still face very large security costs, will still be costly and slow to decommission, and still require liability insurance caps. They don’t solve any of the problems that they purport to while intentionally choosing to be less efficient than they could be. They’ve existed since the 1950s and they aren’t any better now than they were then.”

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 0 points 2 years ago

That's really bad news, because renewable energy alone is not enough.

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