Let's check the stats on the newest nuclear power plant built in France:
> A third reactor at the site, an EPR unit, began construction in 2007 with its commercial introduction scheduled for 2012. As of 2020 the project is more than five times over budget and years behind schedule. Various safety problems have been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor. In July 2019, further delays were announced, pushing back the commercial date to the end 2022.
> EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months. The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022.
10 years late (so far) and 15 bil over budget (so far).
There was a ~5 year gap where France stopped work on adding reactors. France would probably be building more EPRs now if the planned 5-year construction of Flamanville 3 hadn't stretched out to 15 years:
While it used to be a different matter in France, they last completed a reactor more than 30 years ago and the one currently being built is beset with the same time and cost overruns as those in the U.K.
> A third reactor at the site, an EPR unit, began construction in 2007 with its commercial introduction scheduled for 2012. As of 2020 the project is more than five times over budget and years behind schedule. Various safety problems have been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor.[1] In July 2019, further delays were announced, pushing back the commercial date to the end 2022.
Regarding France, it seems that we have lost the actual knowledge on how to build nuclear power plants. Which should have been expected given that we stopped building those for quite a while, so of course the know-how is gone.
Flamanville, the first EPR in France, was schedule to start running in 2012 for a construction cost of 3.3 billion EUR. It is now expected to start producing electricity in 2020 for a construction cost of 10.9 billion EUR. Emphasis on expected...
And in four years, they’ll be close to zero. How long will it take France to replace all of its end of life reactors? Decades. France is coasting on fifty year old capital investments and labor.
> The first and only EPR under construction in France is Flamanville-3, a project led by EDF as developer, constructor, owner and operator. This project is an industrial failure with endless delays and substantial cost overruns observed. When the construction of this reactor started in 2007, its commissioning was scheduled for 2012 at a cost of around €4 billion. In 2022, Flamanville-3 is still not operational and it will not be before 2023 – at least an 11-year delay on a five-year project. Its cost has spiraled to more than €20 billion, a multiplication by a factor five compared to the cost estimate when decision was taken. As a result, the generation cost of Flamanville-3 is now estimated at €115-125/MWh. Explanations provided blame for unpreparedness, incorrect technical references and insufficient detailed studies as well as the loss of competences in the French nuclear industry. The absence of skills maintenance, or “learning by doing”, has proven particularly problematic for the quality of welds – requiring repairs, notably.
> France has neglected building new capacity for decades
No. The last built reactor (Civaux-2) was delivered in 1999, and the new generation architecture "EPR" reactor (which was set as the lead of a series) project began in 2004, its construction began in 2007, never stopped, and albeit costing way over its budget it isn't yet delivered.
France's newest PWR reactors, using the EPR design, are being built in France and Finland. They're both grotesquely late and over-budget. If Flamanville 3 could switch on today and incur no further construction costs, the electricity from it would still cost more to generate than German electricity costs to generate.
What will happen to the EPR in Europe after Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 are finally complete?
The faithful would say "build more EPRs. Future ones will be cheaper due to lessons learned on these original projects." And they might well be correct. Unfortunately, the Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 projects were also touted as affordable and predictable to build back when they were originally started. How do you convince buyers that the lies and/or irrational exuberance that lead to bad predictions in 2005 have been tamed, and that the next reactor project will be the real affordable, predictable reactor project?
Perhaps the latest attempt to construct a new nuclear plant in France has something to do with it?
Construction on a new reactor, Flamanville 3, began on 4 December 2007.[4] The new unit is an Areva European Pressurized Reactor type and is planned to have a nameplate capacity of 1,650 MWe. EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion[4] and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months.[5] The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022.
Oh wait, that was what Wikipedia said a year ago! Now it continues:
In January 2022, more delays were announced, with fuel loading continuing until mid-2023.[4][5]
I believe the Flamanville EPR is considered as some sort of prototype. It was planned to be years in the making and difficulties were expected.
However, they were not expecting this much. The reasons that they are pushing are:
1. Lack of proper trained personnel
2. More constraints imposed during the projects due to Fukushima
3. First design of that kind
And as you said, the last nuclear reactor to be finished in France was 20 years ago[0]. The people who worked on that last plant were probably the one who worked on plants during the 70s, 80s and 90s and retired right after. It fits with reason 1.
That is the first next generation EPR reactor, the second one of its kind in Europe and first in France. This is just reinforcing my point the first one is hard to predict the cost and timeline for.
France built 20 P4/P'4 reactors, most were built on time and at reasonable costs.
The last gen N4 had only 4 units, even then the second batch at CIVAUX costed only $4B.1[2] i.e. $1,349/ kWe overnight costs
Vogtle(GA) 3/4 is expected to cost ~ $8,000 /kWe [3] [4] and the EPR is at Flamanville 3(France) is expected to come in at $6,500 kWe [5].
France projects to achieve 40% cost reduction and faster commisioning for EPR designs over next few being built to achieve $ 3800 /kWe overnight costs [5]. The report details on how they this is achieved and gains already seen at Taishan(China) ( partly owned by EDF)
OECD Nuclear Energy Agency reports in the modern era the overnight costs to be between $2,157 kWe [South Korea] to $6,900 kWe [Slovakia] [6]
Reduction in time and cost is normal to expect in any repeated project development. The first one is path finder, next few should benefit from them, however if we do just built only a few then costs or timeline shouldn't be an objective to compare.
> France has been into nuclear for a long time but hasn't actually built a single new reactor in over 2 decades. The newest reactor running at the moment they have went online in 2002.
> (Yes I know they have the fancy new EPR reactor under construction in Flamanville but that is not ready yet)
Wikipedia says: In December 2007, construction of the unit itself began. This was expected to last 54 months, with commissioning planned for 2012
They've been building that specific reactor for nearly 2 decades, so it's not for lack of trying and rather puts a different spin on their lack of nuclear at the moment.
The originally proposed construction schedule for Flamanville 3 was 4.5 years. That was a very aggressive schedule. Even reactors completed before Chernobyl, e.g. Cruas 3, took more than 5 years:
Generation III reactors like the EPR and AP1000 were supposed to be simultaneously faster to build and safer due to standardization and careful design. The actual experience of building EPR and AP1000 reactors has torpedoed the "faster" part of that justification. The troubled, prolonged builds have also killed the original lower cost projections.
At this point the the original cost and schedule estimates for EPR and AP1000 projects alike look so optimistic that they were basically fraudulent. These projects were troubled even before Fukushima aroused a new wave of anti-nuclear sentiment among the public.
I still believe the empirical evidence that nuclear power is a very safe way to generate electricity. I also believe the empirical evidence that nuclear reactors are expensive and slow to construct. "Generation IV will be safer and faster to build" -- ok, for a while I believed those same claims about Generation III. The next time I'll believe those claims about a new reactor design is after it has already entered commercial service.
> In the meantime, the french nuclear industry lost the competency to build new one as demonstrated by the struggling EPR project in Normandy.
If the French (of all people) can no longer get it together to build new reactors even remotely on time and on budget, then maybe we just need to be honest and give up on the "build lots of new nuclear plants, quickly" as a credible medium-term component of a plan to deal with climate change.
"France's Flamanville 3 reactor will cost 300 million euros more than forecast and fuel loading is being pushed back by up to six months, EDF (EDF.PA) said on Wednesday, in the latest setback for a project already running more than a decade late.
EDF now estimates the total cost of the project at 12.7 billion euros ($14.42 billion). Its expected cost has more than quadrupled from the first estimate made in 2004."[0]
> There are only 2 plants operational right now. Once there are 1000 or something
I think we should refresh ourselves on the timeline[0] of Flamanville 3, although this should probably come with a trigger warning.
First concrete was poured for the demonstration EPR reactor at the Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant on 6 December 2007.
In December 2007, construction of the unit itself began. This was expected to last 54 months, with commissioning planned for 2012.
In April 2008, the French nuclear safety authority (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire, ASN) reported that a quarter of the welds inspected in the secondary containment steel liner are not in accordance with norms, and that cracks have been found in the concrete base.
In May 2009, Stephen Thomas reported that after 18 months of construction, and after a series of quality control problems, the project is "more than 20 percent over budget and EDF is struggling to keep it on schedule".
In August 2010, the regulator, ASN, reported further welding problems on the secondary containment steel liner [..] EDF announced that costs had increased 50% to €5 billion, and commissioning was delayed by about two years to 2014.
In July 2011, EDF announced that the estimated costs had escalated to €6 billion, and that completion of construction was delayed to 2016.
In December 2012, EDF announced that the estimated costs had escalated to €8.5 billion
In November 2014, EDF announced that completion of construction was delayed to 2017, due to delays in component delivery by Areva.
In April 2015, Areva informed the French nuclear regulator ASN that anomalies had been detected in the reactor vessel steel, causing "lower than expected mechanical toughness values" [..] [it was] reported that Areva had been aware of this problem since 2006.
In June 2015, multiple faults in cooling system safety valves were discovered by ASN.
In September 2015, EDF announced that the estimated costs had escalated to €10.5 billion, and the start-up of the reactor was delayed to the fourth quarter of 2018.
In April 2016, ASN announced that additional weak spots had been found in the reactor steel, and Areva and EDF responded that new tests would be conducted, though construction work would continue.
In February 2017 [it was] stated the project was six years late, and €7.2 billion over budget, while renewed delays in the construction of the EPR-reactors at Taishan Nuclear Power Plant prompted EDF to state that Flamanville 3 remains on schedule to start operations by the end of 2018, assuming it receives regulatory approval.
The discovery of quality deviations in the welding led to a further revision of the schedule in July 2018. Fuel loading was delayed until the end of 2019, and the cost estimate was increased from €10.5 billion to €10.9 billion.
In June 2019, nuclear regulator ASN determined that eight welds in steam transfer pipes passing through the two wall containment, that EDF had hoped to repair after startup, must be repaired before the reactor is commissioned [..] estimated costs were €11 billion.
In October 2019, EDF announced that because of this issue costs would increase to €12.4 billion and that fuel loading would be delayed until the end of 2022. [auditors] revealed that the costs could reach €19.1 billion instead of €12.4 billion when taking into account the additional charges due to the delay in construction.
In January 2022, it was announced that more time was needed for the repair of faulty welds and the solving of other issues.
In December 2022, EDF announced a further delay of at least six months with an estimated cost increase of €500 million due to more work to establish a new process for the stress relieving heat treatment of some welds close to sensitive equipment.
Fuel loading is now forecast for early 2024.
Estimated total costs increased to €13.2 billion.
Given all that, I'm not sure there's much appetite to continue building them at all, never mind at the scale you suggest.
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