THE FUTURE IS FLAMANVILLE

GUY:

So, you won the lottery and want to bring power to the world (or just your own city.) You read Our World in Data and find their work compelling. You and the folks in government want to go all-in on a public-private nuclear partnership; after all, nuclear is safe, clean, reliable, and cheap (in the long term). Oh and it’s sexy right now. That helps. Great. What existing reactor do you use as your model? What engineering and construction firms do you go with? How do you get the intended result: a safe reactor, juicing the system with inexpensive power (at some point), that's low-carbon to produce and to run?

You think the technology makes sense but you’ve been looking into things and suspect that the CO₂ production estimates are fictional. Modern reactors seem to use far more concrete than older reactors, in fact, enough concrete to pave a highway across the continent, and when the hypothetical five-year construction timeline is extended to a more realistic 15 years all of this means many times the CO₂ production than advertised... When you’re being honest you’re also a little worried that no one on Earth actually knows or even has a serious estimate for the financial cost, timeline, or even what tools it might take — to say nothing of the human or environmental costs — to clean up a reactor site when something goes wrong. Turns out at Fukushima, even more than a decade out, they still don’t know what they’re dealing with or even what century a completed clean-up might arrive in.

MOI:

There are plenty of working next-generation reactors going up all over the world.

GUY:

I’ve looked. Nuclear is always a future project. Before Finland’s Olkiluoto was built, it was going to be the one that would revolutionize everything and be an example for the world. Then every part of the construction and eventual operation demonstrated it was all bologna... Then the US was going to bring us Vogtle, in Georgia. This was going to be the real precipitant. Vogtle 3 and 4 were the first new reactors in a generation and for some reason they also promised to arrive on time and on budget. The final cost and time to build were well above double the original estimates. Like, plus 5% is understandable but 120%? What is that? The final build cost was $36.8 billion, making it not merely more expensive than predicted but the most expensive power plant ever built on planet Earth. Of course that means the people of Georgia (suffering among the worst energy poverty and already among the highest energy prices in the country), will see their power bills inflated for the life of these reactors (at least 60 years, so the life of everyone alive in that state). The delays and cost inflation were not burdensome over-regulation, as is the usual claim, but totally incompetent project managers and construction teams. It was well-reported that the project was plagued with component failure rates around 80%, lack of inspections, violations of engineering and electrical standards, failures to document work, etc…

MOI:

There are other countries in the world who do nuclear far better. Check out the situation in France or South Korea.

GUY:

Better than Norway and the US?

MOI:

France has some of the lowest energy prices and energy emission in the world.

GUY:

Let’s look. Right now.

MOI:

Please.

GUY:

Looks like the newest reactor is Flamanville 3. The first French reactor in 25 years. Intended as a total revolution, game-changing state-of-the-art technologies. It was started in 2007 and came on line in 2024. That looks bonkers to me. It cost four times the initial estimate, making it the most expensive reactor in Europe. And it looks like energy prices are more than 8,250 euros per kilowatt of installed power, making it some of the most expensive power on Earth.) Yup. And here it is, it arrived after 17 years — 12 years later than promised.

MOI:

Well, if you just—

GUY:

Oh look at this, the reactor was started up on Sept 3rd but went into a SCRAM within just hours. You see, there are no free lunches. You could build nuclear reactors and settle for the most expensive upfront cost and the most expensive power on earth for the life of the reactor (maybe 40-60 years if it doesn't fail earlier) and have all the same service variability and outages... Or you could have far cheaper power by going with alternatives.

MOI:

Well, the South Texas Nuclear plants have been running for about 35 years with few problems. They do have maintenance, of course, but it’s just a few weeks every couple of years.

GUY:

It can't be so. Let's look it up.

MOI:

Please do.

GUY:

Huge cost and time overruns in construction. Seven years late and 5X over budget. Look here, Sandia Labs and the University of Texas wrote a report saying the South Texas Project was among the top ten most vulnerable reactor sites in the US and needing retrofits. South Texas also has had major fires, regular serious emergency shutdowns since the start, including in recent years (2002, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2021, 2024 X2). Those weren't minor. Five month shutdown in 2011, four months in 2013, a little $3M water pump shutdown on two reactors, many "unusual events", shutdowns related to cold weather lasting days at a time... Total gong show.

MOI:

Huh. Well, I know there's a reliable reactor up near Chicago.

GUY:

They probably have a bunch up that way.

MOI:

I think they called it something like the Clean Energy Center or something.

GUY:

Here it is. The Clinton Power Station. Also known as the Clinton Clean Energy Center.

MOI:

That's it.

GUY:

So it was 1,000% over budget. Seven years behind schedule. Was shut down for maintenance half of the time for the first few years of operation.

MOI:

Huh.

GUY:

Oh, look here. It's energy was so expensive it couldn't compete in the wholesale market until environment subsidies for "zero-carbon emissions" kept it afloat. And after less than a decade of "operation", so called, it had to close due to safety and technical issues.

MOI:

Huh.

GUY:

Yeah. Nuclear: it's the future of energy. "24/7 clean power."