<story><title>$60/MWh for advanced nuclear electricity is achievable: GE Hitachi Executive</title><url>https://www.utilitydive.com/news/advanced-nuclear-ge-hitachi-mwh-nuscale-smr-small-modular-reactor/630154/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jedd</author><text>Nuclear fission power apologists frequently make a claim like this when trying to establish why costs are so high (it doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily explain why cost &lt;i&gt;overruns&lt;/i&gt; are so high, as presumably the regulation set is known at the time of project initiation).&lt;p&gt;If this were the &amp;#x2F; a major factor in cost competitiveness, we&amp;#x27;d expect to see much higher uptake of nuclear fission power plants in places where, as you might say, those things &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; disregarded (to varying degrees).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t believe that&amp;#x27;s the case, but can&amp;#x27;t find convincing data one way or the other.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there are examples of massive cost overrun &amp;#x2F; delayed commissioning nuclear fission plants - say Hinkley in the UK - that could be pointed at to substantiate the &amp;#x27;process and regulatory approval&amp;#x27; costs, where those process and regulations changed after the initial cost calculations.</text></item><item><author>idiotsecant</author><text>&amp;gt; nuke generation is cheap if you push all the risks for construction cost overruns onto someone else.&lt;p&gt;I am a big fan of nuke as the generation source that is mostly environmentally benign right now today full stop. It&amp;#x27;s well known, though, that the main problem with nuke is that it&amp;#x27;s very expensive to build because we&amp;#x27;re quite worried about the safety so we have a lot of process and regulatory approval built into the design and construction. That extra process and regulatory approval is quite expensive.&lt;p&gt;Of &lt;i&gt;course&lt;/i&gt; it&amp;#x27;s a lot cheaper if you just disregard those things.</text></item><item><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>The independent review of costs for nuscale they link is brutal:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ieefa.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;NuScales-Small-Modular-Reactor_February-2022.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ieefa.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;NuScales-Small-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; As currently structured, those project risks will be borne by the buying entities
(participants), not NuScale or Fluor, its lead investor. In other words, potential 
participants need to understand that they would be responsible for footing the bill 
for construction delays and cost overruns, as well as being bound by the terms of an 
expensive, decades-long power purchase contract.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; These compelling risks, coupled with the availability of cheaper and readily 
available renewable and storage resources, further weaken the rationale for the 
NuScale SMR.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway2037</author><text>About delays and cost overruns, I highly recommend that people read about the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland.  The delays and cost overruns are totally insane, yet they claim (on Wiki):&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Even taking into account all OL3 construction delays the long term LCOE target for all three plants is 30 EUR&amp;#x2F;MWh. LCOE for the OL3 reactor alone is estimated at 42 EUR&amp;#x2F;MWh.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
My &amp;quot;envelope maths&amp;quot; tells me that generating electricity from OL3 is twice the cost of OL1+OL2: 18 EUR&amp;#x2F;MWh vs 42 EUR&amp;#x2F;MWh.&lt;p&gt;The main Wiki article includes a long list of reasons for delays and cost overruns.&lt;p&gt;The construction project also included very long term, underground storage.  On YouTube, you can find a great, if slightly creepy, documentary about it called &amp;quot;Into Eternity&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>$60/MWh for advanced nuclear electricity is achievable: GE Hitachi Executive</title><url>https://www.utilitydive.com/news/advanced-nuclear-ge-hitachi-mwh-nuscale-smr-small-modular-reactor/630154/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jedd</author><text>Nuclear fission power apologists frequently make a claim like this when trying to establish why costs are so high (it doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily explain why cost &lt;i&gt;overruns&lt;/i&gt; are so high, as presumably the regulation set is known at the time of project initiation).&lt;p&gt;If this were the &amp;#x2F; a major factor in cost competitiveness, we&amp;#x27;d expect to see much higher uptake of nuclear fission power plants in places where, as you might say, those things &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; disregarded (to varying degrees).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t believe that&amp;#x27;s the case, but can&amp;#x27;t find convincing data one way or the other.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there are examples of massive cost overrun &amp;#x2F; delayed commissioning nuclear fission plants - say Hinkley in the UK - that could be pointed at to substantiate the &amp;#x27;process and regulatory approval&amp;#x27; costs, where those process and regulations changed after the initial cost calculations.</text></item><item><author>idiotsecant</author><text>&amp;gt; nuke generation is cheap if you push all the risks for construction cost overruns onto someone else.&lt;p&gt;I am a big fan of nuke as the generation source that is mostly environmentally benign right now today full stop. It&amp;#x27;s well known, though, that the main problem with nuke is that it&amp;#x27;s very expensive to build because we&amp;#x27;re quite worried about the safety so we have a lot of process and regulatory approval built into the design and construction. That extra process and regulatory approval is quite expensive.&lt;p&gt;Of &lt;i&gt;course&lt;/i&gt; it&amp;#x27;s a lot cheaper if you just disregard those things.</text></item><item><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>The independent review of costs for nuscale they link is brutal:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ieefa.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;NuScales-Small-Modular-Reactor_February-2022.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ieefa.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;NuScales-Small-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; As currently structured, those project risks will be borne by the buying entities
(participants), not NuScale or Fluor, its lead investor. In other words, potential 
participants need to understand that they would be responsible for footing the bill 
for construction delays and cost overruns, as well as being bound by the terms of an 
expensive, decades-long power purchase contract.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; These compelling risks, coupled with the availability of cheaper and readily 
available renewable and storage resources, further weaken the rationale for the 
NuScale SMR.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>KptMarchewa</author><text>&amp;gt;If this were the &amp;#x2F; a major factor in cost competitiveness, we&amp;#x27;d expect to see much higher uptake of nuclear fission power plants in places where, as you might say, those things are disregarded (to varying degrees).&lt;p&gt;Historically NPT treaty prevented a lot of those countries from pursuing peaceful nuclear energy.</text></comment>