On 01/05/2019 11:18, Pancho wrote:
I'm trying to understand this currently I'm coming up with the following
theory.

The key issues with nuclear seems to be that economic viability depends
on a lot of reactors using the same design being built. This allows
design cost and the cost of understanding build issues to be spread.

No.

The Key issue with nuclear is the regulatory regime under which it is built.

A basic reactor is about the same amount of labour and materials as a
coal fired power station. And can be put up in a couple of years.

Regulatory approval streches the process to a decade and triples the
capital cost and cpaital cots is teh far and away largest single cost in
nuclear power generation, followed by O & M costs.


I guess France did it in the past so it is viable. But the UK government
does have a habit of messing up big projects.


French are worse.

Google Okiluoto and Flammanville.

Really speaking a multinational would have a better chance at these
economies of scale but I suspect they fear that government regulation
and/or new technology could limit their ability to use the same design
multiple times.

You are barking up the wrong tree. All nuclear companies are multinational.

What is happening however is that people are trying to get type approval
for a reactor that can be mass produced in a factory and shipped to its site

This isn't abpout economies of scale though, it sa about circumventing
regulation.

So we currently have the technology to solve the low CO2 energy
production issue but we aren't doing it, primarily because companies are
worried that someone will figure a way to do it cheaper.

We arent doing it because on the one hand no one wants to pour billions
into a project that can be stopped with a stroke of the regulatry pen,
and on teh wother we arent dong it becase there is no need to solve the
low C2 energy production iussue, because AGW is a crock of ****. Amd
attemptinmg tpo solcve it but not solving it at all is a way to make
****loads of subsidised money .

We have had a century of communism and socialism. It has achieved
bugger all. Because in order to exist it needs problems it can pretend
to solve.







--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!