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I don’t have time to read all that just now, but I feel like focusing on the singular most recent reactor’s build time is cherry picking. What’s wrong with looking at decades of data of build time and costs? Costs can be normalized for inflation and markets, and average build times are much more important than a single reactors’s build time even if it is the most recent one. I don’t get why you’d focus on that single reactor. How are you so sure it represents some new average?
I don’t have time to read all that just now, but I feel like focusing on the singular most recent reactor’s build time is cherry picking. What’s wrong with looking at decades of data of build time and costs?
Because the next most recent reactors are many decades older. The next most recent project would likely be Watts Bar plant which started in 1973 and finished one of two reactors online in 1996 (23 year construction project!!!) or its second reactor which also started in 1973 and came online in 2016 an astounding 43 years from construction to being online.
To remove THAT “outlier” you have to go back 1989 a full 35 years ago. If you’re going back that far, doesn’t that raise the question “how many more recent modern nuclear plant projects in the USA do you have to ignore before you get favorable numbers?”. If the more recent project keep taking way more time and costing way more money, why would we expect a project starting today to match what occurred in the 1970s instead of what happened in the 21 century?
Costs can be normalized for inflation
True
and markets,
Which markets? Electricity prices?
and average build times are much more important than a single reactors’s build time even if it is the most recent one.
That assumes that we could still build them like we did many decades ago. The knowledgeable people that ran those projects retired and weren’t replaced. Additionally, regulatory rules and safety rigor are much higher than they were back then negating that build time/cost from back then.
I don’t get why you’d focus on that single reactor. How are you so sure it represents some new average?
I don’t understand why drawing data from 35+ years ago is considered more accurate than data obtained in the last 20.
I don’t have time to read all that just now, but I feel like focusing on the singular most recent reactor’s build time is cherry picking. What’s wrong with looking at decades of data of build time and costs? Costs can be normalized for inflation and markets, and average build times are much more important than a single reactors’s build time even if it is the most recent one. I don’t get why you’d focus on that single reactor. How are you so sure it represents some new average?
Because the next most recent reactors are many decades older. The next most recent project would likely be Watts Bar plant which started in 1973 and finished one of two reactors online in 1996 (23 year construction project!!!) or its second reactor which also started in 1973 and came online in 2016 an astounding 43 years from construction to being online.
To remove THAT “outlier” you have to go back 1989 a full 35 years ago. If you’re going back that far, doesn’t that raise the question “how many more recent modern nuclear plant projects in the USA do you have to ignore before you get favorable numbers?”. If the more recent project keep taking way more time and costing way more money, why would we expect a project starting today to match what occurred in the 1970s instead of what happened in the 21 century?
True
Which markets? Electricity prices?
That assumes that we could still build them like we did many decades ago. The knowledgeable people that ran those projects retired and weren’t replaced. Additionally, regulatory rules and safety rigor are much higher than they were back then negating that build time/cost from back then.
I don’t understand why drawing data from 35+ years ago is considered more accurate than data obtained in the last 20.