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How big are the commitments here? I’m having trouble finding actual dollar amounts. Does this actually represent an infusion of money into these SMR efforts,

by mrtracy 8mo ago

How big are the commitments here? I’m having trouble finding actual dollar amounts. Does this actually represent an infusion of money into these SMR efforts, or are these “commitments” tied to so many missable targets that it’s actually meaningless? Oklo in particular seems to be total vaporware, I can’t find a single technical picture anywhere of anything this company’s reactor is seeking to do. They seem to raise money based on a rendering of a ski lodge. A huge, concrete investment in TerraPower would be more interesting, but as a molten salt SMR which has never been built, this also looks extremely non-committal. SMRs in general seem like a dead end, we’ve heard about them for decades and they don’t seem to be any closer to making nuclear power buildouts less expensive. Everything that makes proven nuclear power plant design expensive seems to revolve around the same drivers of expense for all long-term construction: large up front capital requirements, changing regulations, failure to predict setbacks, and pervasive lawsuits. SMRs purport to tackle a couple of these (shorter-term builds, fewer setbacks), at the cost of considerable efficiency, but so far this seems like an inferior alternative to “just get better at building proven nuclear plant designs”.

colechristensen 8mo ago
The thing which can make nuclear cheap is building a large number of the same plant design.
- dalyons 8mo ago
  Cheap-er, not cheap. They’re still fundamentally massive complicated constructions. They will never be as amenable to mass production cost reductions as things like solar and battery
  - colechristensen 8mo ago
    >Cheap-er, not cheap. Can we please not have these "slightly improved language" comments? You're arguing against something I didn't say and making a meaningless nitpick on word choice.
    - citeitpls 8mo ago
      tbh i don't think either the original or improved language post is presenting effectively because they both just give a conclusion without any nuance, explanation or support. "cheap" cheaper who cares? $/kwh matter. transmission costs matter.
      - caminante 8mo ago
        Who doesn't say nuclear is more expensive? The lowest LCOE for nuclear is to the right of the most expensive solar plus storage.
        fc417fc802 8mo ago
        If you have credible figures then present them with citations. Otherwise you're just hand waving. I don't think anyone will dispute that the initial build out for solar is far far cheaper. That much is self evident to everyone. The devil is in the rest of the details.
        caminante 8mo ago
        No. >I don't think anyone will dispute that the initial build out for solar is far far cheaper. OK. >The devil is in the rest of the details. Now, this is "hand wavy" instead of answering my question and pointing to sources who support the up thread claim that nuclear will be "cheap" v. alternatives. Do you have an LCOE study showing nuclear as "cheap"?
    - hcknwscommenter 8mo ago
      you literally said "cheap" and the comment said "cheap-er not cheap". I think the comment is correct and you are wrong. China is building the same design again and again and again. And it's still not cheap.
    - dalyons 8mo ago
      i'm sorry it came across that way. let me rephrase. "cheap" to me implies it is affordable in a relative sense, compared to other options. It will almost certainly never be cheap - even if we make it cheaper through more production, it is going to remain in the group of the least affordable power generation technologies.
- testing22321 8mo ago
  China are building dozens simultaneously, and even with their questionable workers rights, safety and environmental practices, they cost $7 Billion a pop.
  - bastawhiz 8mo ago
    A dozen $7B nuclear plants is $84B, which is incidentally almost exactly the estimated cost of the SF-Gilroy-Palmdale plan for California's high speed rail. If you count all of phase 1, the P50 estimated cost goes up to $106B. That's the equivalent of 15 nuclear plants. China has over 28 plants in progress, which should provide a total of >32GW of capacity when they're completed. That's 32×24×365= 280TWh of electricity per year. California's total electric grid in 2024 produced 216TWh. Which is to say, $7B is a huge sum. But as far as infrastructure goes, China is currently building 130% of all of California's generation capacity that'll be complete within a decade or so, for much less than double the estimates for a high speed rail system that'll serve almost nobody by 2038. $7B is a lot of money. But it's actually a very reasonable amount of money because the projects are actually happening. 28 $7B projects in the US are actually probably closer to a trillion dollars in investment for far less net public good over five times the timeline.
    - ynx0 8mo ago
      Very insightful, this helped put things into perspective.
    - testing22321 8mo ago
      I agree, but if a developed country could get the price down to $15 billion a pop in the next two decades it would be a miracle. Not to mention you wouldn’t generate a single kW for 20+ years from today. In theory they’re fantastic. In reality not so much (which, incidentally, is the same story for the CA HSr)
      - bastawhiz 8mo ago
        In April Reuters reported that China approved ten plants for $27B (total): https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/china-approves-building-10-new-nuclear-power-units-27-billion-2025-04-28/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... Whether they run over budget (or whether this is an under inflated figure) is yet to be seen, but it would seem that China is bringing the cost down, and substantially. I'm not a nuclear expert by any means, but from the reading I've done, they're largely designing and building the reactors themselves these days. And it seems that to help keep the cost low (among other reasons), they're also helping other countries build them.
- jmyeet 8mo ago
  Nuclear is never getting cheap [1]. Nuclear reactors need to be large to scale [2]. As for why SMR persists? Because someone makes money selling the idea. That's it. And SMRs get sold is the very idea you state because it sounds compelling: the more you build, the cheaper it gets. Nuclear seems like it should work. But there are massive unsolved problems like the waste from fuel processing, processing the spent fuel, who can be relied upon to run these things, who can be trusted to regulate them and the failure modes of accidents. Despite there being <700 nuclear reactors built we've had multiple catastrophic failures. Chernobyl still has a 1000 square mile absolute exclusion zone. Fukushima will likely take a century to clean up and cost upwards of $1 trillion if not more. Yet this all gets hand-waved away. Renewable is the future. [1]: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-nuclear-fantasy-would-cost-twice-as-much-as-renewables/ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-n... [2]: https://spitfireresearch.com/scaling-example-1-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/ https://spitfireresearch.com/scaling-example-1-small-modular...
  - defrost 8mo ago
    I more or less agree with your comment but feel it should be pointed out the CSIRO economic feasibility study is specific to Australia. The arguments made there; why Australia is better to pursue renewables now rather than hope for nuclear eventually have no bearing on, say, China's use of nuclear for 20% of Chinese baseload. A large part of the CSIRO argument is the greenfield standing start no prior expertise massive upfront costs and long lead time to any possible return. China, by contrast, has an existing small army of nuclear technologists, multiple already running reactors, and many reactors of varying designs already in the design and construction pipeline.
    - cycomanic 8mo ago
      Even China who committed to significant nuclear capacity and wanted to ramp up their nuclear percentage to 20% (IIRC) is slowly moving away. The percentage of nuclear has in fact reduced over the last 5 years and initial commitments/projections of nuclear capacity are likely not going to be med. The whole reason being that solar (and to a lesser degree wind) have become so cheap that nuclear just doesn't make economical sense even for China.

by mrtracy 8mo ago

colechristensen 8mo ago

The thing which can make nuclear cheap is building a large number of the same plant design.

dalyons 8mo ago
Cheap-er, not cheap. They’re still fundamentally massive complicated constructions. They will never be as amenable to mass production cost reductions as things like solar and battery
- colechristensen 8mo ago
  >Cheap-er, not cheap. Can we please not have these "slightly improved language" comments? You're arguing against something I didn't say and making a meaningless nitpick on word choice.
  - citeitpls 8mo ago
    tbh i don't think either the original or improved language post is presenting effectively because they both just give a conclusion without any nuance, explanation or support. "cheap" cheaper who cares? $/kwh matter. transmission costs matter.
    - caminante 8mo ago
      Who doesn't say nuclear is more expensive? The lowest LCOE for nuclear is to the right of the most expensive solar plus storage.
      - fc417fc802 8mo ago
        If you have credible figures then present them with citations. Otherwise you're just hand waving. I don't think anyone will dispute that the initial build out for solar is far far cheaper. That much is self evident to everyone. The devil is in the rest of the details.
        caminante 8mo ago
        No. >I don't think anyone will dispute that the initial build out for solar is far far cheaper. OK. >The devil is in the rest of the details. Now, this is "hand wavy" instead of answering my question and pointing to sources who support the up thread claim that nuclear will be "cheap" v. alternatives. Do you have an LCOE study showing nuclear as "cheap"?
  - hcknwscommenter 8mo ago
    you literally said "cheap" and the comment said "cheap-er not cheap". I think the comment is correct and you are wrong. China is building the same design again and again and again. And it's still not cheap.
  - dalyons 8mo ago
    i'm sorry it came across that way. let me rephrase. "cheap" to me implies it is affordable in a relative sense, compared to other options. It will almost certainly never be cheap - even if we make it cheaper through more production, it is going to remain in the group of the least affordable power generation technologies.
testing22321 8mo ago
China are building dozens simultaneously, and even with their questionable workers rights, safety and environmental practices, they cost $7 Billion a pop.
- bastawhiz 8mo ago
  A dozen $7B nuclear plants is $84B, which is incidentally almost exactly the estimated cost of the SF-Gilroy-Palmdale plan for California's high speed rail. If you count all of phase 1, the P50 estimated cost goes up to $106B. That's the equivalent of 15 nuclear plants. China has over 28 plants in progress, which should provide a total of >32GW of capacity when they're completed. That's 32×24×365= 280TWh of electricity per year. California's total electric grid in 2024 produced 216TWh. Which is to say, $7B is a huge sum. But as far as infrastructure goes, China is currently building 130% of all of California's generation capacity that'll be complete within a decade or so, for much less than double the estimates for a high speed rail system that'll serve almost nobody by 2038. $7B is a lot of money. But it's actually a very reasonable amount of money because the projects are actually happening. 28 $7B projects in the US are actually probably closer to a trillion dollars in investment for far less net public good over five times the timeline.
  - ynx0 8mo ago
    Very insightful, this helped put things into perspective.
  - testing22321 8mo ago
    I agree, but if a developed country could get the price down to $15 billion a pop in the next two decades it would be a miracle. Not to mention you wouldn’t generate a single kW for 20+ years from today. In theory they’re fantastic. In reality not so much (which, incidentally, is the same story for the CA HSr)
    - bastawhiz 8mo ago
      In April Reuters reported that China approved ten plants for $27B (total): https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/china-approves-building-10-new-nuclear-power-units-27-billion-2025-04-28/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... Whether they run over budget (or whether this is an under inflated figure) is yet to be seen, but it would seem that China is bringing the cost down, and substantially. I'm not a nuclear expert by any means, but from the reading I've done, they're largely designing and building the reactors themselves these days. And it seems that to help keep the cost low (among other reasons), they're also helping other countries build them.
jmyeet 8mo ago
Nuclear is never getting cheap [1]. Nuclear reactors need to be large to scale [2]. As for why SMR persists? Because someone makes money selling the idea. That's it. And SMRs get sold is the very idea you state because it sounds compelling: the more you build, the cheaper it gets. Nuclear seems like it should work. But there are massive unsolved problems like the waste from fuel processing, processing the spent fuel, who can be relied upon to run these things, who can be trusted to regulate them and the failure modes of accidents. Despite there being <700 nuclear reactors built we've had multiple catastrophic failures. Chernobyl still has a 1000 square mile absolute exclusion zone. Fukushima will likely take a century to clean up and cost upwards of $1 trillion if not more. Yet this all gets hand-waved away. Renewable is the future. [1]: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-nuclear-fantasy-would-cost-twice-as-much-as-renewables/ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-n... [2]: https://spitfireresearch.com/scaling-example-1-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/ https://spitfireresearch.com/scaling-example-1-small-modular...
- defrost 8mo ago
  I more or less agree with your comment but feel it should be pointed out the CSIRO economic feasibility study is specific to Australia. The arguments made there; why Australia is better to pursue renewables now rather than hope for nuclear eventually have no bearing on, say, China's use of nuclear for 20% of Chinese baseload. A large part of the CSIRO argument is the greenfield standing start no prior expertise massive upfront costs and long lead time to any possible return. China, by contrast, has an existing small army of nuclear technologists, multiple already running reactors, and many reactors of varying designs already in the design and construction pipeline.
  - cycomanic 8mo ago
    Even China who committed to significant nuclear capacity and wanted to ramp up their nuclear percentage to 20% (IIRC) is slowly moving away. The percentage of nuclear has in fact reduced over the last 5 years and initial commitments/projections of nuclear capacity are likely not going to be med. The whole reason being that solar (and to a lesser degree wind) have become so cheap that nuclear just doesn't make economical sense even for China.