[kublikhan]

The ridiculous thing is eastern nations don't have problems building units within contract time or at least fairly close to it.

Nuclear energy proponents often cite the seeming ongoing support for nuclear energy in China and Russia when arguing that the western world is being left behind by its move away from the electricity generation modality. What they don’t tell you, though, is that the projects in question are in general running way behind schedule, and are repeatedly unnerving regulators due to the presence of unresolved “safety concerns.”

With that in mind, the China Daily has now reported that fuel-loading at the Sanmen nuclear energy project on the coast — to be the world’s first Westinghouse-designed AP1000 nuclear reactor — has again been delayed. This time due to the aforementioned “safety concerns.” Delays have been a common occurrence on the project, as the original plan was for the project to go online in 2014. Before moving on, it should be stated bluntly here that regulators in China haven’t approved any new nuclear energy projects in over two years. Clearly, the government there is beginning to become skeptical of the technology, and the timelines presented by project creators.

Elsewhere, the situation regarding nuclear energy project delays and cost-overruns is similar, with the technology seemingly not capable of supporting the grandiose claims often made by those hawking it to governments around the world.

Safety Problems Again Delay China’s Sanmen Westinghouse AP1000 Nuclear Energy Project

The latest commissioning delay at CGN Power’s nuclear project in Taishan, in Guangdong province – the third in two years – will lead to a further deferral of 5 billion yuan (US$770 million) in annual revenues and potentially more cost overruns. The delay is another setback for China’s ambitious development programme.

The project was originally expected to come on line in 2015. The firm in early 2015 cited a “comprehensive evaluation” of the construction plan and risks for its first delay. In the second delay early last year, it said it needed to conduct “more experimental verifications in respect of its design and equipment”.

CGN Power’s latest project delay deals another blow to China’s nuclear energy ambition

Korea delays completion of Shin Hanul-1-2 nuclear reactors

[GHung]

Meanwhile, there's the huge problem of decommissioning and dismantling older plants. Even dismantling old aircraft carriers is more problematic than originally expected:

The U.S. Navy Is Having a Hell of a Time Dismantling the USS Enterprise
https://www.popularmechanics.com/milita ... -disposal/

Nobody has ever disposed of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier before. Turns out it's not easy.

Six years after decommissioning USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy is still figuring out how to safely dismantle the ship. The General Accounting Office estimates the cost of taking apart the vessel and sending the reactors to a nuclear waste storage facility at up to $1.5 billion, or about one-eighth the cost of a brand-new aircraft carrier.

The USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1961 to be the centerpiece of a nuclear-powered carrier task force, Task Force One, that could sail around the world without refueling. The fleet was a symbol of the Navy’s global reach and its nuclear future. During its 51 years in operation, the Enterprise served in the Cuban Missile Crisis blockade, the Vietnam War, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Navy decommissioned Enterprise in 2012 (don’t worry, the third carrier of the new Gerald R. Ford class will be named Enterprise, so the name will live on) and removed the fuel from the eight Westinghouse A2W nuclear reactors in 2013. The plan was to scrap the ship and remove the reactors, transporting them by barge from Puget Sound Naval Base down the Washington Coast and up the Columbia River, then trucking them to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site for permanent storage.

However, after decommissioning the cost of disposing of the 93,000-ton ship soared from an estimated $500-$750 million to more than a billion dollars. This caused the Navy to put a pause on disposal while it sought out cheaper options. Today the stripped-down hull of the Enterprise sits in Newport News, Virginia awaiting its fate.

Now, according to a new General Accounting Office report (PDF), the Navy has two options. The first is to have the Navy manage the job but let the commercial industry do the non-nuclear work. The Navy would allow industry to scrap the non-nuclear parts of the ship but preserve a 27,000-ton propulsion space containing the reactors. The propulsion space would then be transported to Puget Sound Naval Base, where the reactors would be removed and sent to Hanford. This is the most expensive option, costing a minimum of $1.05 billion up to $1.55 billion and taking 10 years to complete, starting in 2034. ............

Compounding the issue is a “not my problem” intergovernmental dispute. The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the arm of the Navy concerned with nuclear power, says the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission could oversee a commercial effort. But the NRC says Navy nuclear reactors are not its job. It’s not clear exactly why NNPP doesn’t want the job, although it currently has a backlog of 10 submarine reactors and two cruiser reactor to deal with (which is probably why a Navy effort won’t start until 2034). Ultimately, according to the GAO, it may take Congress to make a decision. ....

Congress? Really? Or maybe the Russians will take a few hundred million to let us sink them off their northern coast.

[diemos]

How pathetic is it that China which was firmly anti-technology until the Communist victory in the 1940's is able to run rings around the country that designed what they are building?

As I always say, the chinese ruling class is composed of engineers, ours is composed of lawyers.

I have much greater confidence that the chinese will recognize the reality of the situation and take concrete steps to mitigate and prepare for their future.

[diemos]

As I also always say, Mao Lenin and Nehru should be considered heroes of western capitalism. By keeping half the population of the earth poor and backward they freed up resources for the west to exploit. Convincing them to abandon communism was the worst thing we ever did. We should have been encouraging them to "stay the course".

[dissident]

NATO anti-Russian brainwashing is strong. Not a single reference to the global leader in nuclear technology and loads of fawning over China. China buys Russian reactors like Iran. And Russian reactors are built on time and budget. NATO MSM lying 24/7 is not going to alter reality (e.g. their convolution of massive infrastructure spending for the "Russian Riviera cum Alps" and the Sochi winter olympics which cost $9.2 billion and not $54 billion).

China does not have a viable domestic fast neutron breeder reactor program. France was ahead of the curve in the 1970s with the Superphenix but enviro-tards killed the project by the 1990s. This included actual terrorism with bombs. It is suspicious that the enviro-tards went after the cleanest nuclear process and left the "waste" generating obsolete reactors off their hysteria list. The only country with an actual, deployable design is Russia. Don't invoke experimental prototypes with Thorium and whatnot as if they are just around the corner. Japan closed its fast breeder program. The US does not have one (the past is not the present and the designs from the 1960s cannot be commercialized). China is way behind the curve and I bet that they are using stolen Russian designs:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Ch ... 12174.html

Such projects take more than a couple of years to generate viable commercial products. This includes fuel reprocessing which is not trivial since new types of pyrochemistry processes have to be developed for customized fuels. By contrast, the BN-800 is the transitional design from the prototype regime to the commercial stage (the BN-1200).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor

Typical BS anti-Russian spin about delays. Making the economics of the BN-1200 the same as the VVER-1200 (pressurized boiling conventional type) would be an enormous achievement considering that conventional reactors do not spend money dealing with fuel reprocessing.

http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrus ... 19-4933888

Delays developing new technology are not "delays", they are development time.

[onlooker]

I wonder if the allegations made in this article are true. If so what can be done to address the concerns? Thoughts?

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/ ... utiny.html

[M_B_S]

Uranium Boom @the door?

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... 344801002/

With Trump in power it seems possible.

Peak Oil <=> Peak Uranium

[dissident]

I wonder if the allegations made in this article are true. If so what can be done to address the concerns? Thoughts?

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/ ... utiny.html

I don't think there is a clear picture of the risk. The US is deliberately delaying destruction of its weapons grade fuel stocks and this is the main reason that Russia stopped the agreement aimed at controlling such fuel. So the US can store this fuel in conditions suited for its reuse in nuclear weapons on short notice. I suppose the spent fuel storage from the civilian power plant fleet is another subject since that is a private property issue and the US has a history of letting corporations do whatever they please.

[dissident]

Uranium Boom @the door?

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... 344801002/

With Trump in power it seems possible.

Peak Oil <=> Peak Uranium

The US is downsizing its nuclear power generation capacity and has plenty of reactor fuel in stocks. The reason it is not mining as much Uranium as in the past is that it does not need it. We are seeing simple economics in action.

[GHung]

The Game-Of-Chicken Saga Continues:

Southern Is Said to Be Near Pact to Continue Building Nuke
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... of-chicken

Southern Co. is nearing an agreement with Oglethorpe Power Corp. and two other companies to continue working on the only nuclear power plant under construction in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

Southern and its partners are trying to agree on provisions that would limit the potential impact of further cost increases for the troubled $28 billion Vogtle plant in Georgia, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. The deadline for a decision has been pushed back to 5 p.m. New York time Wednesday, said Terri Statham, an Oglethorpe spokesperson.

Oglethorpe said on Sept. 24 that it would only continue on the project -- which has doubled in price and is running more than five years behind schedule -- if future costs were capped. Southern initially rejected that demand but agreed to extend the talks. .....

.... Southern assumed responsibility for managing its construction of the project near Augusta, Georgia, after contractor Westinghouse Electric Co. went bankrupt last year.

Costs have ballooned from an initial budget of about $14.1 billion. Southern owns 46 percent of the project, and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia has a 23 percent share. Dalton Utilities owns 1.6 percent.

Last week, the U.S. Energy Department warned Southern’s partners against pulling out of the project, saying it would prompt the government to demand repayment of about $5.6 billion in federal loans. ....

Initial cost estimates were closer to $10 billion, IIRC

In for a Penny,, In for a Pound:

All four of the Vogtle 3 & 4 co-owners vote to move forward with construction of nuclear expansion project

ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- All four of the Vogtle 3 & 4 project co-owners (Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power and Dalton Utilities) have voted to continue construction of the two new nuclear units near Waynesboro, Ga.

"We are all pleased to have reached an agreement and to be moving forward with the construction of Vogtle Units 3 & 4 which is critical to Georgia's energy future," said the co-owners. "While there have been and will be challenges throughout this process, we remain committed to a constructive relationship with each other and are focused on reducing project risk and fulfilling our commitment to our customers."

In connection with the votes to continue construction, all four of the co-owners agreed to finalize and execute definitive agreements which helps mitigate financial exposure for each of them. The details are contained in Georgia Power's Current Report on Form 8-K filed today. ......

https://southerncompany.mediaroom.com/2 ... on-project

Meanwhile, static demand, cheaper renewables and the soaring costs give customers cold feet

JEA, City file lawsuit to break contract with firm behind nuclear money pit
https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonvill ... y-pit.html

JEA and the City of Jacksonville have filed a joint complaint in Florida state court to void an agreement that compels JEA to purchase power from Plant Vogtle, an unfinished nuclear power facility in Georgia that has drastically exceeded expected construction costs.

JEA entered into the power purchase agreement in 2008 when energy demand was steadily growing and cleaner energy initiatives loomed over JEA's heavily coal-based portfolio. Since then, energy demand has stagnated as devices have become significantly more efficient, and natural gas, solar and other energy sources have become far more price competitive.

The agreement mandates that JEA purchase a fixed amount of power from the plant at above market rates or a lump sum if the plant never produces power. The plant was expected to cost $9.5 billion in direct costs to build, $1.4 billion of which would be paid by JEA.

However, the plant's cost-to-completion estimates now stand at more than $30 billion, and it is expected to be completed no earlier than November 2021. ......

[Tanada]

8 year thread bumps accomplish little besides exposing more bad predictions. This one is wrong on multiple levels:

"Obamanation out of there, we will start building nuclear reactors. Caribou Barbie Palin will make sure of it."

Now there is a FINE example of a failed prediction, well done!

[GHung]

Hitachi shelves $20 billion nuclear power plant in UK

Hitachi has shelved plans for a $20 billion nuclear power plant in the United Kingdom, raising questions over future energy supplies in the country.
The Japanese conglomerate said in a statement Thursday that it has stopped work on the project in Wales after failing to reach a deal with the British government.
Horizon Nuclear Power, the company's UK nuclear division, said the decision was made after several years of negotiations over financing with UK authorities failed to yield results.
Hitachi is the second big Japanese company to back away from the UK nuclear energy industry in recent months.

In November, Toshiba (TOSBF) said it would shut down its UK nuclear power operation NuGen early this year after failing to find a buyer.
The moves by Hitachi and Toshiba will make it harder for Britain to meet its targets to reduce carbon emissions. They also throw plans to replace the country's aging nuclear plants into disarray.
"The urgent need for further new nuclear capacity in the United Kingdom should not be underestimated," said Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain's Nuclear Industry Association. ......
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/17/business ... index.html

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Plant Vogtle a utility boondoggle

The construction of Plant Vogtle’s nuclear reactor units 3 and 4 has been a slow-motion disaster. Cost-overruns and repeated delays have marred the project. Developers are already five years behind schedule and $13 billion over budget.

The truth is that many of the issues plaguing Vogtle’s construction were easily foreseeable and, in a free market, an undertaking such as Plant Vogtle would likely never have transpired. That should tell you a lot about the project’s viability.

The power companies’ decision to proceed with the foolhardy construction is a symptom of Georgia’s problematic electricity market. Georgia permits electricity providers to maintain monopolies and shields them from competition. What this means for electricity consumers is that if they don’t like their provider or its prices, they are out of luck.

In such a setting, consumers are captive to local electricity monopolies. Thus, these companies have no incentive to provide top-notch customer service or competitive pricing to retain their customers. By comparison, in a competitive electricity market, businesses are forced to vie for consumers’ loyalties to remain profitable.

It seems unfathomable that in a free market, a company would embrace a massive and risky investment like Vogtle. Developers have abandoned over 20 nuclear sites in the South alone for various reasons, which should have been the first red flag. The plan also requires charging current ratepayers for the yet-to-be-finished reactors. In a competitive market, this would drive customers away as they flee to companies that offer lower prices. ......
https://www.savannahnow.com/opinion/201 ... boondoggle

[EdwinSm]

Only 5 years late...

Developers are already five years behind schedule and $13 billion over budget.

Finland's latest nuclear power plant is Eleven years late

The launch of Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 reactor has been postponed again. It is now to begin production in 2020, some 11 years behind schedule.

Ongoing testing will again postpone the commissioning of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant’s third unit. The reactor in Eurajoki, south-west Finland, was originally to have begun producing electricity in 2009.
.....
The 1.6-gigawatt OL3 will become Finland’s fifth and biggest reactor. TVO’s largest shareholders .....

More than 2,000 people are still working at the OL3 site, with just over 300 from supplier Areva-Siemens overseeing the commissioning process along with staff from TVO.

As of last month, some about 90 percent of the structure’s 2,700 rooms had been completed.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/long-delayed_olkiluoto_3_nuclear_reactor_to_go_online_in_january_2020/10532547

[cephalotus]

UK planned to build 6 nuclear reactors.

Hinkley C, built by the Chinese and promiesed a feed in tariff of 96 pounds/MWh + Inflation adjustment for 35 years, is now 8 years behind schedule.

Toshiba stoped ist nuclear power plant end of 2018, because it is not cost competitive
Hitachi cancelled ist plan early 2019 and lost 2.3 Billion Euro already, because it is not cost competitive.

The other three reactors will not be built, either.

So this is left from UKs 6.5GW nuclear plan. One single plant, built by the Chinese, many years behind schedule, way over any cost estimations which will produce electricity at 2-3 times higher prices compared to wind or solar power plants. (and unknown follow up costs and obviously no insurance against a major accident)

[Plantagenet]

So this is left from UKs 6.5GW nuclear plan. One single plant, built by the Chinese, many years behind schedule, way over any cost estimations which will produce electricity at 2-3 times higher prices compared to wind or solar power plants. (and unknown follow up costs and obviously no insurance against a major accident)

Obviously the 20th century concept of giant, centralized nuclear power plants hasn't worked out very well.

In the 21st century we've got new technology, and we should be moving to new, simpler, and more cost effective designs for smaller, modular assembly-line nukes, like this one:

nuscales-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-reliable-resilient-and-flexible

Cheers!

[cephalotus]

Obviously the 20th century concept of giant, centralized nuclear power plants hasn't worked out very well.

In the 21st century we've got new technology, and we should be moving to new, simpler, and more cost effective designs for smaller, modular assembly-line nukes, like this one:

nuscales-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-reliable-resilient-and-flexible

Cheers!

They want to built a Demonstrator by 2026. As we no for nukes that would mean 2030 or 2035 or never.

So I say that we wait until they are finished and proven.

By that time we (Germany) are somewhere around 70% RE in the electricity grid with the remaining 30% being coal and gas over here.

IF small nukes are a real, cost effective, safe and sutainable option we could/should caculate a scenario with them and this is a big IF.

For just 20% electricity from nukes at a future (year 2050+) 1500TWh/a demand (this includes domestic and industrial heat, mobility and generating fuels from electricity) this would mean 300TWh/a and at 4000h/year of production you would Need 75GW of them. At 100MW each this would mean 750 "small" nuclear reactors in Germany in dddition to all the solar and wind and some gas power plants.

I very much doubt that we will do it.

[EdwinSm]

The reason it is delayed is because Finland is broke.

I don't think the country is quite there, but the electricity production/consumption figures for 2018 are worrying, and clearly show the need for the power station to come on line.

According to the link below, the hot dry summer of 2018 caused an increase in electricity consumption and a reduction in production (mostly hydro-). This meant the Finland had the highest import % of electricity in Europe, at 23%.

Consumpiion 87 TWh
Import 20 TWh (23%)

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/electricity_consumption__and_prices__up_in_2018/10582202

ps. What I have realised in all this is that in this geographic situation solar power compliments hydro-power, in that with a hot dry summer solar production will increase when hydro decreases. Even in winter the hourly spot price for electricity is lower than it was in the summer, giving a small amount more financial support for solar power (higher prices when production is highest - works well).

[dissident]

But according the western media there is no corruption in the west. Gross cost and time overruns in power plant construction are direct evidence of corruption. There is nothing intrinsic to nuclear power plants that makes them super expensive (compared to other energy projects of the same class) and always taking longer to complete:

https://www.rosatom.ru/en/investors/projects/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom

Not hard to grab 67% of the global market when your competitors can't get their act together. At one time France was on the ball, but this is no longer the case. Thanks to fake environmentalist snowflakes and outright terrorists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activit ... 71116.html

The "greens" and corruption helping to send humanity to oblivion.

[Tanada]

California, home to the country’s most aggressive wind and solar mandates, is a cautionary tale. On sunny days, the state often winds up paying neighboring states to take unneeded power off its hands. Californians pay 50 percent more for electricity than the average U.S. consumer. And yet, California’s carbon emissions haven’t fallen any faster than those in the nation as a whole. Nonetheless, the state’s public utilities commission recently voted to shut down California’s last remaining nuclear power plant, which will take with it 9 percent of the state’s electric power.

On the global stage, Germany exemplifies green energy’s law of unintended consequences. The country has poured 150 billion euros into its ambitious Energiewende plan to wean itself from fossil fuels. Despite obtaining 38 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, Germany has made little progress bringing down carbon emissions. Meanwhile, electricity rates have doubled, air quality is miserable, and the country still depends on coal for about 40 percent of its power. Germany “is the biggest fraud globally,” one frustrated EU official said. France’s Macron, who came into office promising to shut down many of that country’s reactors, reversed course after observing the German example. “What did the Germans do when they shut all their nuclear in one go?” he asked rhetorically in a 2017 interview. “They worsened their CO2 footprint. It wasn’t good for the planet. So, I won’t do that.”

Will more policymakers start facing up to the yawning gap between renewable hype and energy reality? They may be forced to. The blistering summer of 2018 throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere pushed electricity usage to dangerous levels. Germany’s vaunted green-energy infrastructure couldn’t keep up, and the country had to rely on its few remaining reactors to fill the gap. South Korea moved to increase its number of operating reactors from 14 to 19. Japan accelerated a plan to reopen some of the plants closed after Fukushima, nearly doubling its nuclear capacity. And Taiwan reopened a formerly closed plant. Antinuclear sentiment runs high in all those countries, but their political leaders apparently decided that they would face a stiffer voter backlash if they allowed power blackouts.

Many pronuclear advocates hold out hope that “next-generation” nuclear power technologies might provide the needed breakthrough to revive the sector. Private investment is pouring into innovative new reactor concepts, including Small Modular Reactors, which could be factory-built, made impervious to meltdowns, and sited close to cities or industrial parks, where energy demand is highest. Proposals to build SMR demonstration plants are moving ahead in Idaho and Tennessee and in Canada. If these ideas pan out, they could indeed revolutionize power generation.

But rolling out such technology at scale could take decades. “We don’t need to wait for advanced nuclear,” Shellenberger warns. “Current reactor designs work fine, and they’ve been proven safe. We just need to keep using them.”

LINK

[diemos]

I've been to the Tohoku region a couple of times in the last few years. Not the exclusion zone but Fukushima, Yamagata and Ichinoseki cities.

I remember the anti-nukes weeping and wailing about how the region would be a blasted moon scape forever, bodies stacked like cord wood, muto-chicken babies crawling through the streets croaking, "kill me, kill me".

And all I can think is, "There now ... that wasn't so bad, was it?"

The hysteria did more damage than the fallout.