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United States Power

Georgia Nuclear Plant Begins Splitting Atoms For First Time (apnews.com) 257

Posted by BeauHD from the energy-of-the-future dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: A nuclear power plant in Georgia has begun splitting atoms in one of its two new reactors, Georgia Power said Monday, a key step toward reaching commercial operation at the first new nuclear reactors built from scratch in decades in the United States. The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. said operators reached self-sustaining nuclear fission inside the reactor at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta. That makes the intense heat that will be used to produce steam and spin turbines to generate electricity.

A third and a fourth reactor were approved for construction at Vogtle by the Georgia Public Service Commission in 2009, and the third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016. The company now says Unit 3 could begin commercial operation in May or June. Unit 4 is projected to begin commercial operation sometime between this November and March 2024.

The cost of the third and fourth reactors was originally supposed to be $14 billion. The reactors are now supposed to cost more than $30 billion. That doesn't include $3.68 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners after going bankrupt, which brings total spending to more than $34 billion. Georgia Power said Unit 3 would continue startup testing to show that its cooling system and steam supply system will work at the intense heat and pressure that a nuclear reactor creates. After that, operators are supposed to link the reactor to the electrical grid and gradually raise it to full power.
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Georgia Nuclear Plant Begins Splitting Atoms For First Time More

Georgia Nuclear Plant Begins Splitting Atoms For First Time

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  • Geez (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:03PM (#63351561) Journal

    The Country is so divided that even the atoms are split.

  • It's all in the numbers. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:05PM (#63351569) Journal

    The cost of the third and fourth reactors was originally supposed to be $14 billion. The reactors are now supposed to cost more than $30 billion. That doesn't include $3.68 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners after going bankrupt, which brings total spending to more than $34 billion.

    Whew! Good thing nuclear is competitive with renewable energy.

    • Re:It's all in the numbers. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Alascom ( 95042 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:22PM (#63351611)

      Crescent dunes spent $1b to make 100MW of power and produces nothing.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Georgia is spending $30b to make 2500MW of power, and is actually is producing reliable & sustainable power.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      I'd say Nuclear suffers from harsh regulation and politicians driving costs thru the roof, but even so still doing better than Crescent Dunes solar would have (if it actually worked.). Nuclear produces zero carbon emission and has a dramatically smaller geographic footprint.

      • Crescent dunes spent $1b to make 100MW of power and produces nothing.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Georgia is spending $30b to make 2500MW of power, and is actually is producing reliable & sustainable power.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        I'd say Nuclear suffers from harsh regulation and politicians driving costs thru the roof, but even so still doing better than Crescent Dunes solar would have (if it actually worked.). Nuclear produces zero carbon emission and has a dramatically smaller geographic footprint.

        Crescent Dunes is producing energy again, or at least was, as of the 2022 figures reported here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project

        Nuclear costs are through the roof, we agree on that much.

        • Do we though? (Score:2, Informative)

          by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

          Nuclear costs are through the roof, we agree on that much.

          Did you forget to amortize $30b across 80+ years of operation?

          Nuclear is at this point cheaper than solar or wind, and more stable to boot.

          • Will it definitely last 80 years? There are plants in the UK about to be decommissioned after 40 years.
          • Citation required for nuclear being cheaper, as all the analyses that include amortisation suggest while there is sometimes an overlap, in general wind, for example, is cheaper. Do we believe you, with no evidence shown, or Lazard and others? I saw this as someone broadly supportive of a role for nuclear, but suggesting inaccurate information damages the case for nuclear as it makes proponents look untrustworthy. If someone is inaccurate about cost they won't be taken seriously if they then discuss safety.

          • Re:Do we though? (Score:5, Informative)

            by orzetto ( 545509 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @05:12AM (#63352581)

            Did you forget to amortize $30b across 80+ years of operation?

            Did you forget to account for capital costs? With a reasonable, non-commercial 4% interest rate, the present value of annuity factor [wikipedia.org] converges to 25 years for an infinitely long depreciation horizon. (It's 23.9 years for 80 years of horizon). So it does not really matter that much whether the plant is going to last 40, 60 or 80 years to calculate the LCOE.

            This is because you need to pay interest for those loans you took to build the plant to begin with. No one is going to give you 30 billion dollars interest-free, except for the government, but then we are in subsidised territory and taxpayers will be paying for that.

      • Crescent dunes spent $1b to make 100MW of power and produces nothing.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org]

        Cresent dunes was effectively a trial plant of an at the time unproven and new technology. If you're comparing classic nuclear to that you're not making the point you think you're making.

      • > Nuclear produces zero carbon emission

        So long as you don't include the colossal amounts of carbon emitted during construction, then it's lower carbon during running, but "zero carbon" is highly debatable.

    • Solar was too expensive when the reactors were approved in 2009. In the mean time, the reactor cost doubled, and solar fell like a rock. So now nuclear is too expensive.

      The US southeast has basically no wind power, because trees and hills slow down low-level winds. That's why most wind is in the flat middle part of the country, and soon to be offshore.

      • Solar was too expensive when the reactors were approved

        The decision to build the reactors was reasonable at the time. Solar and wind were still expensive, and there was reason to believe that the standardized AP1000 design would cut costs and speed construction.

        Today, solar and wind are far cheaper, and it is clear that the AP1000 is a disaster.

        Knowing what we know now, starting any new PWR is nuts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 )
      2/3 of that cost is interest on loans. If we get rid of the bankers new nuclear becomes competitive. Even with the bankers taking 2/3 of the cost Voglte would actually lower costs for most consumers.

      • Then why has Georgia Power been collecting a "nuclear surcharge" from their customers for years?

        GP owns about half the new reactors. The rest is owned by several other utilities.

        • Of course they will collect a nuclear surcharge from their customers if they are allowed to. That has little to do with whether or not it's more expensive, and more with the various arguments that were used when the regulation was written into law. Not saying you don't have a point, but it's not the one you used it as...

      • Re:It's all in the numbers. (Score:5, Funny)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @06:11PM (#63351731)

        2/3 of that cost is interest on loans. If we get rid of the bankers new nuclear becomes competitive.

        So, my electric bill will be like $95,000 the first month and then $20 a month for the next 60 years?

      • Massive state subsidy. Socialism. Really?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 )
      US reactors are much more expensive than those elsewhere. That is for a few reasons. First, we are not producing many so we lose economies of scale. Second, the US regulatory burden for construction is extremely high, compared to say those in France or South Korea. A major part of this is that the US has the so-called ALARA rule https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/alara.html [cdc.gov] which has been interpreting as essentially saying that any cost reduction has to be offset by further safeguards against radiation leak

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    In October 2013, US energy secretary Ernest Moniz announced that China was to supply components to the US nuclear power plants under construction as part of a bilateral co-operation agreement between the two countries. Since China's State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) acquired Westinghouses's AP1000 technology in 2006, it has developed a manufacturing supply chain capable of supplying international power projects. Industry analysts have highlighted a number of

    • In October 2013, US energy secretary Ernest Moniz announced that China was to supply components to the US nuclear power plants under construction as part of a bilateral co-operation agreement between the two countries. Since China's State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) acquired Westinghouses's AP1000 technology in 2006, it has developed a manufacturing supply chain capable of supplying international power projects. Industry analysts have highlighted a number of problems facing China's expansion in the nuclear market including continued gaps in their supply chain, coupled with Western fears of political interference and Chinese inexperience in the economics of nuclear power.

      China has built 50 reactors in the last 30 years, and have plans for 150 more. Kind of a sad commentary on the US if they need China in their nuclear supply chain.

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

      • China has built 50 reactors in the last 30 years, and have plans for 150 more.

        Of course they are. They are also leader on solar panels manufacturing, because the west subsidies are (more or less indirectly) going to them.

        They are basically doing what we should have done to be on the map in the next century.

        Too bad we had to submit to zealots saying "Nuclear? No thanks".

  • There are many people here on Slashdot who keep advocating for nuclear power. They have never looked at the numbers. Nuclear is the most expensive way to produce energy. More than wind, more than solar, more than coal, more than gas and more than hydro. Some people think that safety is the main issue with nuclear. It isn't. Money is.

    • They have never looked at the numbers. Nuclear is the most expensive way to produce energy

      Solar and wind prices have been rising steadily. I saw an interview with a person in Croatia doing cost analysis for the government, and he said that at this point nuclear is cheaper than solar or wind.

      Perhaps you have not realized this $34 billion plant can now operate for 80 years or more producing power, without a huge amount of additional cost? Given that most nuclear plants now are having life extended dramatica

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )

      There are many people here on Slashdot who keep advocating for nuclear power. They have never looked at the numbers. Nuclear is the most expensive way to produce energy. More than wind, more than solar, more than coal, more than gas and more than hydro. Some people think that safety is the main issue with nuclear. It isn't. Money is.

      Nuclear (as well as coal, gas and hydro) provides inertia which is a key component of a stable grid. One day we may be able to form a grid with just asynchronous sources like wind and solar, and inverters, That day is not today.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Goonie ( 8651 )
        Not a power grid engineer but my understanding is that as well as advanced inverters, you can use synchronous condensers to provide inertia in a grid with very high instantaneous renewables penetration. https://new.abb.com/motors-gen... [abb.com]

        • Not a power grid engineer but my understanding is that as well as advanced inverters, you can use synchronous condensers to provide inertia in a grid with very high instantaneous renewables penetration.

          https://new.abb.com/motors-gen... [abb.com]

          Neither am I and no argument here. It is important to factor either of those things into the "solar and wind are cheaper" narrative though. Along with with storage (which can also supply inertia) that rarely actually happens.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpq ( 583377 )

      But wind & solar only produce power, sporadically. Solar, at BEST, only has a 50% duty cycle on yearly average. Wind? Winds stop as well. I think thing w/nuclear is that it can produce electricity 24 hours/day. I don't believe fission is an answer, as AFAIK, fissionable fuel is also a non-renewable resource on the planet. Only fusion has a chance of being providing near-limitless energy, but the chances of creating a sustainable fusion reaction without a sun's gravity well seems challenging, to sa

      • I don't believe fission is an answer, as AFAIK, fissionable fuel is also a non-renewable resource on the planet.

        Many "pro-nuclears" don't believe fission is a definitive answer. It's just a way to give us time to breathe (100-200 years, maybe more if we ever get around to finish developping Gen IV reactor design) and find a real sustainable solution.

        Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are not definitive answers either, as they rely on finite resources too.

        We need all options to work together if we don't want the near-future (as in, during our lives) to be a nightmare to live in.

      • Nuclear has to shut down for weeks regularly for maintenance and fuel replacement, if it gets too hot or too cold it also gets shut down, so the 24 hour operation is not 365 days of the year.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Torodung ( 31985 )

      So basically, climate change is a dire global emergency until it costs too much? Rofl.

      We need to get off carbon, now. Nuclear will take a while, but that while is a only a major drawback now because plans have been held up to long by, frankly, fanatics who are inured to the guiding principle of "no nukes." It's a fantasy. Renewables aren't yet ready to replace it and may never be if we don't discover better battery tech. What stopgap option do you suggest other than nuclear? The stopgap measure is insurance

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ZipNada ( 10152669 )

        Nuclear has a long history of failures and cancellations in the US. The Vogtle plant is largely a failure due to the massive budget overrun and the blown schedule. It wasn't held up by fanatics.

        What we can build now successfully is wind, solar, and storage. That plus a revamped transmission grid should be able to get the US to about 75% renewables which is acceptable.

    • People here advocating for nuclear power do so under the correct assumption that is the way forward. Some forms of nuclear are expansive only because fools made it that way. With new designs coming out for SRM the price of nuclear will only go down as more are deployed. Despite what the fools and kooks say, nuclear is the apart of the future and its a good thing that it will be.

      • NuScale might be able to deploy a SMR in 2029, but their track record is very poor. Other than that there's basically nothing, you are blowing smoke.

    • More than wind, more than [...] gas and more than hydro.

      This is only true if you fail to account for the externalised costs.

      Coal has killed hundreds of thousands of people from pollution. You can skimp on paying those costs bu they are paid nonetheless. Gas. Nice and cheap, especially from Putin. Except how much is the gas-funded invasion of Ukraine costing, again?

  • CO reduction - 10 million pounds annually (Score:5, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:21PM (#63351607)

    Just these two reactors coming online will reduce CO2 output by 10 million metric tons annually [energy.gov].

    These are also more advanced reactor designs.

    They generate 17,200,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, that would be a LOT of solar panels or windmills.

    • Re:CO reduction - 10 million pounds annually (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:31PM (#63351637)
      To clarify, since that's an "odd" way of listing a power output, that is 17,200,000 MWh annually. Peak instantaneous output is 2,200 MW.
      • 2.1 Jiga watts

      • That's only odd if you are a scientist. At government level it's standard to list annual production and have it in units of TWh. "Per year" is implicit. Like a government budget (an annual amount) is expressed in billions, not in billions per year.

        Personally the entire Wh series units bother me, we have the Joule and units multipliers.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          Fair enough, I guess it's just hard to get the "engineer" out of me. Expressing a rate without an explicit timeline is (appropriately) politician-level-stupid, especially when you are giving that information to the general public.

        • That's only odd if you are a scientist. At government level it's standard to list annual production and have it in units of TWh. "Per year" is implicit.

          People who use incorrect units-- like saying TWh when they mean TWh per year-- should be fired and blacklisted from ever being hired in any technical position ever.

          IMO.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      $30 billion for the pair of them. They are AP1000 models, not particularity next gen or significantly better. The are questions over their safety - the main goal seems to have been to take claimed improvements in safety and use them to justify reducing additional safety measures elsewhere, such as the containment building.

      Not exactly a great advert for potential investors. They will be waiting a long time to see a return on that money, compared with the competition that breaks even pretty quickly.

      • They will be waiting a long time to see a return on that money, compared with the competition that breaks even pretty quickly.

        They will be producing power day and night for 80+ years, in any weather. Without installing extra batteries.

        The only real competition they had was coal or natural gas plants, which can be retired once these are fully running.

        • Re:CO reduction - 10 million pounds annually (Score:5, Interesting)

          by DanielRavenNest ( 107550 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @06:13PM (#63351741)

          In the time these reactors have been under construction, the Atlanta metro area has grown by a million people. Based on average US electric consumption, that requires 1.45 GW of average power. Since these reactors will produce 2 GW on average, and Georgia Power owns half, their output has already been eaten up by growth. Their delay has caused *more* coal plants to stay online.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            To be fair, a substantial part (though clearly not all) of that delay has been due to political monkeywrenching.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by tragedy ( 27079 )

              To also be fair, how much of that political monkeywrenching was not over environmental concerns, but over outrage that the the plant hit the original cost estimate and was only about a third complete?

        • Link to the "80 years" claim, i can't find it anywhere in the article - and also factor in weeks/months of stoppages for maintenance and new fuel.

      • Re:CO reduction - 10 million pounds annually (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DanielRavenNest ( 107550 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @06:04PM (#63351717)

        The reactors are half owned by Georgia Power, and the rest by several smaller utilities. There are no outside investors. Georgia Power's profit it guaranteed by the Public Service Commission, which has allowed them to collect a "nuclear surcharge" from customer bills for years, despite the plants producing nothing until now. The customers are the ones being screwed over.

      • Re:CO reduction - 10 million pounds annually (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @06:21PM (#63351761)

        The are questions over their safety

        No there are not. Stop spreading lies. There have been disputes by anti-nuclear groups (how strange hey?), which have been answered and documented.

        Tchernobyl, or even Fukushima, kind of incidents cannot happen with that design.

        As for the price, a reactor lasting 60 years is expected to generate more than 60 billions of euros (feel free to do the conversion in dollars). Expected, based on current energy prices. Given that a) the probability energy prices will go up in the next decades is pretty high and b) those plants will likely last more than the originally planned 60 years (based on what we expect from existing reactors in operation in the world), then even 30 billions is not a lot compared to what it brings you (i.e.: power at night and winter, with less CO2eq emitted than solar/wind with batteries).

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Goonie ( 8651 )

          a) the probability energy prices will go up in the next decades is pretty high

          Even taking into account the need for additional transmission and storage, the numbers I've seen suggest that electricity prices in mostly-renewable grids will likely be similar to current levels, or come down from Russian-induced peaks in places dependent on imported natural gas. Energy costs will come down because expensive oil will be replaced by cheaper electricity, used more efficiently.

          those plants will likely last more t

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      They generate 17,200,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, that would be a LOT of solar panels or windmills.

      To start with, megaWatt-hours (which are a stupid unit- it should be in Joules) are a unit of _energy_, not power. So for any meaningful comparison, you would have to specify another time unit to divide by. For example, 17,200,000 megaWatt-hours per picosecond would vaporize a good chunk of the planet, whereas 17,200,000 megaWatt-hours per quadrillion years would be about the output of a potato battery. Presumably, you meant per year, which would work out to about 1.962 GW, so that seems about right.

      Secondl

      • Lifespan (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

        it would be about $8.2 billion worth of wind turbines. That is a lot. It's too bad that this nuclear plant cost $34 billion.

        What wind turbines last 80 years?

        Heck what wind turbines last 20 years?

        on an actual real world price/performance basis, it loses solidly.

        Come back in 80 years and do the same calculation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          it would be about $8.2 billion worth of wind turbines. That is a lot. It's too bad that this nuclear plant cost $34 billion.

          What wind turbines last 80 years?

          Heck what wind turbines last 20 years?

          I would say nearly all of them. The average longevity is at least 20 years. Meanwhile the longevity of a nuclear power plant is about 40 years (you're stretching it with 80 and ignoring the extra costs of extending the life that long). You can point out that they can extend that, but they can extend the life of wind turbines as well it's just that, like a 40 year old nuclear plant, refurbishment is needed to extend that life, and that costs money. It does with the nuclear plant as well, not to mention the c

      • Question: do the 8.2 billion worth of wind turbines produce the same energy per year? Because in that case I don't know what solution at what cost is needed to fill the intermittency gaps. Assuming your calculations are correct, there's a lot of funding available between the wind cost at 8 billion and nuclear at over 30 billion. But for now, it's still a bit an apple and oranges comparison.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Question: do the 8.2 billion worth of wind turbines produce the same energy per year?

          I included the capacity factor in the calculations. In the US, the average is about 36%. It's a national average so, while you can expect some geographic variance, the average is not going to go much below that. Don't forget that nuclear actually has about a 93% capacity factor, so, in my example, I am actually accounting for the intermittency of wind power but not accounting for the intermittency of nuclear power. So, aside from making nuclear look a little better than it actually is, this was not an appli

    • $30 billion buys an awful lot of wind, solar, and storage. It would take a lot less than 14 years to build it too.

    • Indeed. And when we build more of them we should put them on the top of mountains. They should be seaside resorts by the time we get the next ones finished.

      Okay facetiousness aside, nuclear power is green, but it is not a solution to carbon emissions. If we start today we won't get even the first plant online until we've already missed any deadline any country has set for emission reductions. They are a carbon distraction rather than a carbon solution.

      Should we build more? Absolutely. But do so under the gu

  • They can build in my backyard anytime - kind of limited size but if I get free power.

  • Excellent (Score:3)

    by martinX ( 672498 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @05:32PM (#63351643)

    Excellent.

  • We need more atoms!
  • At least when built by China, at $2.7 Billion per 1.1GW reactor, this price beats everything, including solar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

    • China hasn't built anything for $2.7billion per 1.1GW. China built a reactor for Pakistan asking them to fund $2.7billion while financing an additional $6.9billion from Chinese banks which would assume part ownership, all to build a second reactor at an existing nuclear facility.

      As usual, nuclear is far more expensive than proponents admit to, and as usual they confuse expansion projects with new builds which are significantly more expensive.

      But by all means we should build more nuclear. Just don't pretend

  • Key to unity (Score:3)

    by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @06:47AM (#63352671)
    I firmly believe that alleviating the energy constraint and making clean and low cost energy available to everyone will greatly reduce the strain on everyday life and make people more peaceful and cooperative. If (eventually) a Kilowatt would cost a hundred times less than it does now the cost of living, transporting, serving, producing and automating everything will become so cheap the need to compete will decrease greatly and with that current everyday pressure. This is a great step towards that

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