Have the Europeans considered buying ThorCons? I assume ThorCon's estimates are still $1K per kW, but they recently took down their technically excellent website and replaced it with a music video. !! This could be a sign that they have run into some serious roadblocks.
I try very hard to avoid talking about ThorCon on this substack, but you've managed to bait me into it.
ThorCon is actually making good progress in both Indonesia and Korea, but they have brought in a new, younger CEO who has put his own perspective on marketing.
As an editor at Citizendium, I too am uncomfortable with putting too much emphasis on any one company. The problem is that none of the other companies are willing to provide us with the technical detail ThorCon has provided. These details are important, because they allow us to provide a factual basis for debate on the issues that we see prevalent in public discussions of nuclear energy. Without the facts we just see people screaming their opinions.
Claims about cost are best resolved by citing an example of a detailed cost estimate, which we used to have with the old ThorCon website. Claims that the new reactors have "30 times" the amount of nuclear waste, could be easily resolved with an actual number from one of these companies. Almost all of the questions on safety, waste management, proliferation, and cost, are best resolved by looking at specific designs.
One thing that's brought me around on allowing some credibility to the theory of climate change posing a risk is how bad the solutions are
Initially this made me doubt the sincerity of the proponents of an energy transition. Now I doubt their competence. While this does put a question mark on the quality of their reasons for believing in a climate risk, at this point the bigger effect is to jilt my just world bias
Clearly people who cannot, for instance, hire the Koreans or Chinese to build nuclear to help save the world as they believe, are also the kind of people who could blindly create a potentially severe risk at a global scale
Luckily, the solution to both a potential climate risk and to the people failing to fix it at the cost of a trillion a year or what have you can be found - in should-cost nuclear
The focus of this substack is on nuclear's cost, not global warming. Global warming is not the reason, nuclear in the West costs much more than its should-cost. The reason is an omnipotent regulatory system whose goals are antithetic to societal welfare.
But Europe's monomanical focus on eliminating fossil fuels compounds the tragedy. If global warming had never come along, this misbegotten regulatory system would have made nuclear uneconomic and that would be the end of it. We'd remain dependent on fossil fuels and technological progress to extend fossil fuel resources for as long as possible. With luck, the increase in the real cost of fossil would be survivable. Increases in productivity elsewhere in the economy could allow humanity to absorb the depletion. As Max More has pointed out, the time price (average labor hours required to pay for something) can go down even if the real cost is rising.
But thanks to global warming, nuclear has a monopoly. It's the only available anywhere, dispatchable low CO2 source of energy. If fossil is outlawed, there's virtually no limit on how far the regulator can push up the cost of nuclear. Without this prohibition, the cost of fossil put a cap on how much nuclear regulation could harm humanity. With it, the only limit is how much of this nonsense people will tolerate. I remain amazed at the tolerance of the European populace.
There is more in this world than EPR, and AP1000. Where is GE-Hitachi(or whatever it is called now, their reactors are certified in US/EU/UK as well) showing that they were capable to build ABWRs on time (4years) on budget about 20years ago?
You are reading this wrong. The EUR 205 billion are for c. 60 GW, not 11 GW.
They are also stated in present value terms.
If you are interested in the assumptions underlying the European Commission's assessment, you may want to have a look at the accompanying Staff Working Document.
Thanks for finding this for us. I stand corrected. In their Base Case, 11 GW is the net increase in capacity, but they need another 40+ to make up for retirements. They used a discount rate of 7.5% (which seems way high for presumably a government-guaranteed investment via CfD's or the like). So if we assume an 'average' discount period of 12 years, we are talking something like $11,000/kW.
Every time the GKN ventures into breaking news, we get burned.
I think economists call it "revealed preference." European Greens don't *really* care about climate change - they show it over and over and over.
Have the Europeans considered buying ThorCons? I assume ThorCon's estimates are still $1K per kW, but they recently took down their technically excellent website and replaced it with a music video. !! This could be a sign that they have run into some serious roadblocks.
I try very hard to avoid talking about ThorCon on this substack, but you've managed to bait me into it.
ThorCon is actually making good progress in both Indonesia and Korea, but they have brought in a new, younger CEO who has put his own perspective on marketing.
As an editor at Citizendium, I too am uncomfortable with putting too much emphasis on any one company. The problem is that none of the other companies are willing to provide us with the technical detail ThorCon has provided. These details are important, because they allow us to provide a factual basis for debate on the issues that we see prevalent in public discussions of nuclear energy. Without the facts we just see people screaming their opinions.
Claims about cost are best resolved by citing an example of a detailed cost estimate, which we used to have with the old ThorCon website. Claims that the new reactors have "30 times" the amount of nuclear waste, could be easily resolved with an actual number from one of these companies. Almost all of the questions on safety, waste management, proliferation, and cost, are best resolved by looking at specific designs.
One thing that's brought me around on allowing some credibility to the theory of climate change posing a risk is how bad the solutions are
Initially this made me doubt the sincerity of the proponents of an energy transition. Now I doubt their competence. While this does put a question mark on the quality of their reasons for believing in a climate risk, at this point the bigger effect is to jilt my just world bias
Clearly people who cannot, for instance, hire the Koreans or Chinese to build nuclear to help save the world as they believe, are also the kind of people who could blindly create a potentially severe risk at a global scale
Luckily, the solution to both a potential climate risk and to the people failing to fix it at the cost of a trillion a year or what have you can be found - in should-cost nuclear
Smope,
The focus of this substack is on nuclear's cost, not global warming. Global warming is not the reason, nuclear in the West costs much more than its should-cost. The reason is an omnipotent regulatory system whose goals are antithetic to societal welfare.
But Europe's monomanical focus on eliminating fossil fuels compounds the tragedy. If global warming had never come along, this misbegotten regulatory system would have made nuclear uneconomic and that would be the end of it. We'd remain dependent on fossil fuels and technological progress to extend fossil fuel resources for as long as possible. With luck, the increase in the real cost of fossil would be survivable. Increases in productivity elsewhere in the economy could allow humanity to absorb the depletion. As Max More has pointed out, the time price (average labor hours required to pay for something) can go down even if the real cost is rising.
But thanks to global warming, nuclear has a monopoly. It's the only available anywhere, dispatchable low CO2 source of energy. If fossil is outlawed, there's virtually no limit on how far the regulator can push up the cost of nuclear. Without this prohibition, the cost of fossil put a cap on how much nuclear regulation could harm humanity. With it, the only limit is how much of this nonsense people will tolerate. I remain amazed at the tolerance of the European populace.
There is more in this world than EPR, and AP1000. Where is GE-Hitachi(or whatever it is called now, their reactors are certified in US/EU/UK as well) showing that they were capable to build ABWRs on time (4years) on budget about 20years ago?
You are reading this wrong. The EUR 205 billion are for c. 60 GW, not 11 GW.
They are also stated in present value terms.
If you are interested in the assumptions underlying the European Commission's assessment, you may want to have a look at the accompanying Staff Working Document.
https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/communication-nuclear-illustrative-programme-under-article-40-euratom-treaty_en
Adjmal,
Thanks for finding this for us. I stand corrected. In their Base Case, 11 GW is the net increase in capacity, but they need another 40+ to make up for retirements. They used a discount rate of 7.5% (which seems way high for presumably a government-guaranteed investment via CfD's or the like). So if we assume an 'average' discount period of 12 years, we are talking something like $11,000/kW.
Every time the GKN ventures into breaking news, we get burned.