[lazide]

I take it you didn’t read my earlier comment?

There is no engineering reason for those reactors to cost $10bln. Literally zero.

There are lots and lots of other reasons why they will probably cost even more than $10bln/ea though.

Just like there is literally zero engineering reason for the ‘high speed’ rail in California to cost the insane sums it is currently consuming, and will continue to consume.

The reason why the old ones are ‘better’ is because they already are operating under existing approvals, so the tarpits don’t work on them.

[cinntaile]

Life is pretty darn good in lalaland where everything is just a technological problem ready to be solved. I wish I could live there.

[lazide]

Not sure how me pointing out that organizational and political dysfunction, corruption, and general bullshit is the reason why it is 'hard' now (and wasn't as hard 50 years ago when the currently active reactors were built since folks seemed to actually want to build them more than just siphon money out of the system or throw wrenches into the works for ideological reasons), and how it doesn't seem to have anything to do with any of the actual technical or engineering difficulty is living in lalaland - but you do you I guess?

If we wanted to build cost effective and safe reactors, we could, and have many times in the past. Near as I can tell, almost no one does (compared to some cool new idea, or what becomes a one off, or ends up going back to the drawing board 50 times - all while getting paid), so we don't.

Same with high speed rail (and a bunch of other pork projects in CA), same with subways in many big cities, etc.

[cinntaile]

There's nothing wrong with pointing out what you think is the problem. It's just that you can't ignore reality, in the actual world it takes much longer to build and it's more expensive for whatever reason that may be.

[lazide]

If building a house (as in actually building the structure) costs $100k-$200k - typical labor and material costs in the US btw - but end to end costs for the same house are roughly $1 million-$2 million(typical in the Bay Area), is it honest or disingenuous to claim that lumber or labor costs are driving house costs up?

Because in this thread someone was claiming steam turbine costs were why nuclear was ‘expensive’, which is about as legit. Also in these nearby threads have been discussions about waste disposal (similar levels of not actually a problem), etc.

You’re similarly ignoring and seem to want to pretend that these costs are somehow fundamental to nuclear, despite me providing evidence it’s a general problem we have with building several types of things now, and is more political BS than anything fundamental to do with nuclear as a technology.

If the same thing happens to building roads, is it because ‘roads are expensive’? Or because ‘we screwed ourselves up even more so now we can’t build roads without going bankrupt’?

[cinntaile]

I don't claim this is unique for nuclear? The same is true of all big infrastructure projects, although I don't see how that is relevant as a counterargument. These costs are the current reality, so that's what I base my opinion on. I'm interested in the actual cost, not the theoretical cost cause it's the actual cost that will ultimately impact us.