ok this is not addressing my confusion, my confusion is that that particular piece of information does not distinguish between your hypothesis and many others [with one example I used].
I am not sure why nuclear power cost is so high. Maybe you are right, that nuclear energy just never had improvement since 1960 that decreased the real cost to produce electricity [though electronic component costs had gone down, although construction costs have not]. My point is that this particular piece of information does not distinguish the hypothesis.
My information is mostly from this series of blog posts.
Taking this at face value, can we agree that current nuclear regulations are imposing a lot of irrational costs on nuclear generators [e.g. designating extremely low radioactive material as contaminated and requiring special disposal]? I don’t know how much this cost is [let’s say >10%]. Then inflation could be 90% and unreasonable regulation 10% of the cost increase.
that particular piece of information does not help me increase or decrease these percentages.
As Construction Physics notes in its Part 2, rules about low-level waste were driven by direct public concern about that, which forced the NRC to abandon proposed rule changes. I actually think the public concern about low-level waste was sort of reasonable, because some companies could sometimes put highly radioactive waste in supposedly low-level waste. What do you do when you don’t understand technical details but a group of experts has proven itself to sometimes be unreliable and biased?
Anyway, when considering relative costs, you can’t just look at the cost of regulations on nuclear power and not regulatory costs for other things. How long was the Keystone XL pipeline tied up by lawsuits? How have regulations affected fracking in Europe? And so on. Were regulations on nuclear, relative to appropriate levels of regulation, more expensive than regulations and legal barriers for other energy sources? Probably somewhat, but it’s hard to say for sure, and the US government also put more money into research for nuclear power than other energy sources.
As Construction Physics notes in Part 2:
ALARA philosophy is not an especially good explanation for US nuclear plant construction costs
I originally just wanted to point out that inflation includes some cost reduction from technological progress, and some things naturally increase faster than that, which changes baselines for economic estimations—and I figured I’d frame that around nuclear power since I know the physics well enough and some people here care about it way more than they probably should.
It seems that I have failed to communicate clearly, and for that, I apologise. I am agnostic on most of your post.
Let’s go back to the original quote
Hinkley Point C is an ongoing nuclear power project in the UK, which has seen massive cost overruns and delays. But if you take prices for electricity generation in 1960, and increase them as much as concrete has, you’re not far off from the current estimated cost per kwh of Hinkley Point C, or some other recent projects considered too expensive.
I understand this to mean that [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation]
this does not distinguish between [lack of innovation while everything is inflated] versus [lizard men sabotaging construction].
for [lack of innovation while everything is inflated] to hold you have to argue that [there is a lack of innovation] separately. Or is your argument in reverse? [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation] → [there must be a lack of innovation].
because some other reasons could be responsible, e.g [lizard men sabotaging construction]
Whether the lizard men exist or not I am not qualified to say. Even less to say what they are if they do exist.
You seem to believe there are no lizard men, just pure inflation. Other people seem to believe otherwise.
But [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation] does not seem to support either.
as for the rest,
yes ALARA is overblown, we shared this belief
Were regulations on nuclear, relative to appropriate levels of regulation, more expensive than regulations and legal barriers for other energy sources?
I am not sure
rules about low-level waste were driven by direct public concern about that, which forced the NRC to abandon proposed rule changes. I actually think the public concern about low-level waste was sort of reasonable, because some companies could sometimes put highly radioactive waste in supposedly low-level waste. What do you do when you don’t understand technical details but a group of experts has proven itself to sometimes be unreliable and biased?
agree to disagree here, I believe privately that the level of concern is too high compared to actual risk. But I am uneducated in such matters and the error bar is big.
I understand this to mean that [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation]
That’s not exactly my point. The rate of cost increase for concrete products was higher than the average inflation rate. When you consider that, some inflation-adjusted cost increase doesn’t mean people got worse at building nuclear plants, which is the assumption made in many articles about nuclear power costs.
you have to argue that [there is a lack of innovation] separately
I did:
Which has had more tech progress, home construction or nuclear plant construction? I’d argue for the former: electric nailguns and screw guns, and automated lumber production. Plus, US home construction has had less increase in average wages, because you can’t take your truck to a Home Depot parking lot to pick up Mexican guys to make a nuclear plant.
US electricity costs decreased thanks to progress on gas turbines, fracking, solar panels, and wind turbines. Gas turbines got better alloys and shapes. Solar panels got thinner thanks to diamond-studded wire saws. Wind turbines got fiberglass. Nuclear power didn’t have proportionate technological progress.
agree to disagree here, I believe privately that the level of concern is too high compared to actual risk. But I am uneducated in such matters and the error bar is big.
You’re misunderstanding my point: whether or not the public level of concern over that is correct given a good understanding of the physics/biology/management/etc, I think it’s reasonable given that knowing the technical details isn’t feasible for most people and experts were proven untrustworthy.
ok this is not addressing my confusion, my confusion is that that particular piece of information does not distinguish between your hypothesis and many others [with one example I used].
I am not sure why nuclear power cost is so high. Maybe you are right, that nuclear energy just never had improvement since 1960 that decreased the real cost to produce electricity [though electronic component costs had gone down, although construction costs have not]. My point is that this particular piece of information does not distinguish the hypothesis.
My information is mostly from this series of blog posts.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction
Taking this at face value, can we agree that current nuclear regulations are imposing a lot of irrational costs on nuclear generators [e.g. designating extremely low radioactive material as contaminated and requiring special disposal]? I don’t know how much this cost is [let’s say >10%]. Then inflation could be 90% and unreasonable regulation 10% of the cost increase.
that particular piece of information does not help me increase or decrease these percentages.
As Construction Physics notes in its Part 2, rules about low-level waste were driven by direct public concern about that, which forced the NRC to abandon proposed rule changes. I actually think the public concern about low-level waste was sort of reasonable, because some companies could sometimes put highly radioactive waste in supposedly low-level waste. What do you do when you don’t understand technical details but a group of experts has proven itself to sometimes be unreliable and biased?
Anyway, when considering relative costs, you can’t just look at the cost of regulations on nuclear power and not regulatory costs for other things. How long was the Keystone XL pipeline tied up by lawsuits? How have regulations affected fracking in Europe? And so on. Were regulations on nuclear, relative to appropriate levels of regulation, more expensive than regulations and legal barriers for other energy sources? Probably somewhat, but it’s hard to say for sure, and the US government also put more money into research for nuclear power than other energy sources.
As Construction Physics notes in Part 2:
I originally just wanted to point out that inflation includes some cost reduction from technological progress, and some things naturally increase faster than that, which changes baselines for economic estimations—and I figured I’d frame that around nuclear power since I know the physics well enough and some people here care about it way more than they probably should.
It seems that I have failed to communicate clearly, and for that, I apologise. I am agnostic on most of your post.
Let’s go back to the original quote
I understand this to mean that [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation]
this does not distinguish between [lack of innovation while everything is inflated] versus [lizard men sabotaging construction].
for [lack of innovation while everything is inflated] to hold you have to argue that [there is a lack of innovation] separately. Or is your argument in reverse? [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation] → [there must be a lack of innovation].
because some other reasons could be responsible, e.g [lizard men sabotaging construction]
Whether the lizard men exist or not I am not qualified to say. Even less to say what they are if they do exist.
You seem to believe there are no lizard men, just pure inflation. Other people seem to believe otherwise.
But [plant price increase roughly in line with inflation] does not seem to support either.
as for the rest,
yes ALARA is overblown, we shared this belief
I am not sure
agree to disagree here, I believe privately that the level of concern is too high compared to actual risk. But I am uneducated in such matters and the error bar is big.
That’s not exactly my point. The rate of cost increase for concrete products was higher than the average inflation rate. When you consider that, some inflation-adjusted cost increase doesn’t mean people got worse at building nuclear plants, which is the assumption made in many articles about nuclear power costs.
I did:
You’re misunderstanding my point: whether or not the public level of concern over that is correct given a good understanding of the physics/biology/management/etc, I think it’s reasonable given that knowing the technical details isn’t feasible for most people and experts were proven untrustworthy.
I see, I failed at comprehension then, thank you for your replies