Great news! Nuclear is a critical component for the non-carbon energy infrastructure we're building. Yes, it's expensive, but the only way to make it cheaper is to invest in rebuilding the expertise we stupidly threw away over the past 5 decades. Paying for past mistakes always sucks, but it's better than not doing it and digging the hole even deeper.
It's easy to say but not so easy to do.
The two Western designs built in the last generation are the EPR and the AP1000. The EPR is so unconstructable that it could have been designed by Amory Lovins to put the nails in the coffin of nuclear power. The supply chain for the AP1000 is centered in China. If it wasn't for problems of war and peace the rational thing to do might be ask the Russians to come in and built a VVER.
GE is pushing the BWRX300 which might get some cost reductions because it doesn't need a steam generator, but the small size doesn't help the economics and the cost numbers they are talking about are amazingly low.
There is almost no way this doesn't end up wasting an enormous amount of money, while only having a slim chance of ever coming online, while only having a slim chance of actually lowering energy costs.
If you are gonna blow $10 Billion on a 10 year nightmare project, just buy a ton of solar, wind, and batteries to get 2GW in 5 years.
One of the really tedious types of comment I keep seeing on HN whenever someone posts about some possible or new nuclear power project can be summed up as "But nuclear is no good/too expensive because it just can't do X and Y, so why bother?!".
Sure, maybe, right now some of these kinds of criticisms apply, but we're talking about a technology that's barely been given much room to develop seriously in most cases. In others, where it has been allowed a bit more leeway for development, it's shown itself to be remarkably useful. For example, in the reactors aboard military vessels, or with RTGs.
These sorts of of criticisms such as above seem absurd, especially when you imagine there were indeed people saying roughly similar things about technologies like solar power back in the 70s, or powered flight close to the turn of the 20th century.
It's foolish to shun the entire scope of a technology if its present state of development is the only one you know anything about. This applies so especially to nuclear power, which so very obviously has considerably more potential, without even going into more exotic territories like sustainable fusion energy.
We will see. It's unfortunate but there is a long list of attempted nuke construction that ends up billions of dollars in the hole before the first mwh is made.
Previous Attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant
tl;dr it was commissioned, constructed, and closed due to local safety concerns in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident.
Interesting excerpt from the wiki:
In 2004, the Long Island Power Authority erected two 100-foot, 50 kW wind turbines at the Shoreham Energy Center site,[18] as part of a renewable-energy program.[19][20] At a ceremony, chairman Kessel stated, "We stand in the shadow of a modern-day Stonehenge, a multibillion-dollar monument to a failed energy policy, to formally commission the operation of a renewable energy technology that will harness the power of the wind for the benefit of Long Island's environment." The turbines generate 200 MWh per year, or 1/35,000th of the energy the nuclear plant would have produced.[21]
> The New York Power Authority—created nearly a century ago by then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt to manage hydropower production on behalf of the public
This is rich considering that NYPA’s current customers are exclusively government entities. I found this out when researching why I pay among the highest cost per KWh in the country despite having the largest non profit publicly owned power utility in the country.
Why wouldn't the governor solicit bids for energy, and let the companies that actually build and run generation capacity decide the cheapest way to do that? Having the governor choose seems weird to me.
I am hoping they build this in Oswego on top of the other reactors being built in 9 mile. Lake Ontario has an inexhaustible amount of cold water, and there's plenty of space up there.
... because AI.
Love it or hate it, the AI hype has at least lit a fire on nuclear power. If AI winter comes, we at least get to keep the powerplants and receive clean power for decades.
my grandma lived by the old plant, there were sort of endless signs around to get rid of it. now we get another one.
“Bowing to anti-nuclear fears, New York chose to shut down a reliable and safe source of energy—and now burns more fossil fuels than before.”
I love that nuclear is just far too dangerous when it comes to powering peoples homes. Obsoleting workers with AI however.....
https://archive.ph/0UZ1W