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The Future Price of Electicity Using New UK Nuclear Power Stations

This is purely a rough idea about capita costs of the stations

I did a quick calc for the costs of UK nuke per station lifetime kWh - Im shocked.

The UK's new EPR's are twice the price of 1980's PWR technology.

Researching the web shows many reasons. Most of them I feel are dubious and politically motivated attacks both for and against new nuclear. And its hard to assess why the costs are so much higher, except for the "its too safe" question.

I suspect yet another massive legalised systemic institutionalised scam, similar to HS2. DOGE would love to look into this if not for it potentially being largely a private sector scam rather than purely public sector.

The Spectator has written a good piece here though it is politically driven too so its hard to say:

Why Britain is building the world’s most expensive nuclear plant

You know my theory on public sector waste is that its a red herring - there is no fundamental difference between the public and private sectors. The state is merely the biggest corporation. So just as much waste goes on in the private sector business, perhaps more.

Anyway, the possible reasons contributing to the ultra high cost I've discovered so far are:

  • The EPR is supersafe : all safety systems are x4. It has a double concrete containment x2. And significantly more concrete, electric cables and electronics. That’s why it is expensive… The EPR2 will be cheaper (simple containment and less redundancy = cheaper)(thanks to EFR for this bullet)
  • The UK for some reason has always gone beyond super safe being ultra safe. Even for Sizewell B it extended safety way above the US design - maybe due to being on an island
  • The new EPR's are he first time the UK has built a nuclear power station for 30 years. Successive governments have recklessly 'managed that deliberate decline'.
  • For Hinkley C apparently the ground structure caused a lot of costly problems after license, which is an exposition of UK's woeful loss of civil engineering skills.
  • Sizewell C is predicted to be 25% more costly than that! I have no idea why yet.
  • Stupid People - local people often object on spurious ecological grounds, yet totally miss the point that land values will soar with the advent of a new station - these local people are campaigning AGAINST a rise in land rental values and the selling price of their own homes!
  • Radiation Hysteria - seems one of those irrational fears held widely by the collective unconscious, making even even more safety mandatory
  • Regulatory work Program - regulators, though necessary, need to keep their jobs
  • Deliberate planet wrecking by 'environmentalists' - making safety more 'important' yet still.

A new EPR2 design is on the table which will mitigate the super normal safety costs. Which to achieve the same price as the old PWR's will need to be a 50% cost cut. (thanks to EFN for the data points)

  • The new design in itself will not cut the price by half but perhaps 30% or so
  • However the construction in series will cut another 30% (the First of a Kind costs 30% or so more)
  • Therefore the combination of the 2 can probably cut the price by about half


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