this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
456 points (96.9% liked)

World News

39021 readers
1596 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Goodie@lemmy.world 89 points 10 months ago (5 children)

That's the engineering knowledge lost over the last 30 years costed out.

Making 2 reactors since 95 has some side effects, a lot of the senior engineers since then have retired, standards have changed, and new engineers need to learn.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Exactly what I was thinking

It like those highspeed rail projects that are finally getting going in the US, they're over budget because a lot of people now have to be trained on how to work on such a project due to either lost knowledge or new stuff they're learning during the process

[–] pancakes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

It's a big job to train all those train trainers.

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Yep. The failed dual reactor project in SC that also used the AP1000s was a gigantic clusterfuck. Most of the major contractors had essentially no experience on projects of the scale and it resulted in massive cost overruns, delays, and a compounding web of fraud and lies to shareholders and regulators that wound up in utility executives in prison and the eventual sale of the entire utility SCANA to Dominion Energy.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 12 points 10 months ago

Cost overruns in the nuclear industry are nothing new. It's been the norm. The AP1000 design used here was supposed to solve some of those issues, but it's been more of the same.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Haha, this is insightful, but I worry an incorrect conclusion re: cost and overruns. Yes, lots of extremely experienced engineers have retired; but, the pace even in the 70s, 80s and 90s was oft beset by slowdowns and overruns. See: 9 mile, river bend, rancho seco, comanche peak, and those are just the ones I know off the top of my head.

We need more, but it's a nuclear-and-renewables, not nuclear instead of renewables. I hope smr and other designs get a better shake this time, because climate change doesn't bode well for coastal installations, and frankly, building many more large PWRs isn't going to happen quickly.

Frankly I hope we can turn the experience debt to our advantage - rigorous investigation of all the many options disregarding the established dogma of large PWRs would be good in my view. YMMV.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

This is more than a cost issue. It's a knowledge issue. Countries can't lost this type of knowledge otherwise they lost independence as well.