First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — 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.

  • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Except those reactors are off 30-50% of the time due to shoddy construction, €1.5/W in 2023 money is pure fiction, and overnight costs with free capital aren’t real costs once you adjust for inflation and stop cherry picking the first reactors before negative learning rates kicked in.

    • Waryle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Except those reactors are off 30-50% of the time due to shoddy construction

      For French nuclear power, the lowest load factor ever recorded is 54% in 2022. The cause is the number of maintenance operations postponed because of COVID, plus a corrosion problem detected on several reactors of the same generation, which have since been repaired.

      • This is an extremely unlikely combination of circumstances, on the one hand
      • On the other hand, it wouldn’t have had any consequences if we’d had more redundancy, and hadn’t suddenly stopped building reactors for 25 years.
      • Despite this, nuclear power still has a load factor 2x higher than French wind or solar power.

      The rest of the time, the load factor of French nuclear power hovers around 70-75%, and that’s not due to bad design, it’s a strategy. I’ll let you read this link to learn more.

      €1.5/W in 2023 money is pure fiction

      Of course it does. But the fact is that french nuclear power has paid for itself dozens of times over. It’s factual, it’s historical.

      and overnight costs with free capital aren’t real costs once you adjust for inflation and stop cherry picking the first reactors before negative learning rates kicked in.

      Go argue with the Cour des Comptes, not me

      • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes it was a “strategy” for EDF to go tens of billions into debt, and the other 30-50% of french power infrastructure is there just for fun. These mental gymnastics are incredibly tiresome.