Off the Siberian coast, not far from Alaska, a Russian ship has been docked at port for four years. The Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, sends energy to around 200,000 people on land using next-wave nuclear technology: small modular reactors....
The Akademik Lomonosov was supposed to cost the equivalent of $232M, but ended up somewhere north of $700M all for a net electrical output of 64MWe. In that respect, it follows a familiar path for nuclear projects.
On a cost/kW basis, it's about three times the cost of wind installations. ($3625/kW vs $1300/kW)
The last co-gen plant I worked on had an output of 353MWe and cost about $450M, which was about $50M under budget.
An EPR is an EPR, the same with the AP1000. There are only very minor differences between installs, usually things that will help ease of construction or reliability on future builds. Both are GEN III+ designs, greatly simplified compared to previous generations, with fewer pump, valves and pipe-runs. They also shortened pipe runs where possible. They also have large, factory-built assemblies that are shipped to site, ready to "bolt" in, which should have reduced site construction time.
Where major changes do happen, it's with the balance of plant infrastructure, which is site dependent. Location of access roads, where the switchyard is installed, where cooling water is accessed , etc will never be the same between sites. Nor will the geotech information. So a lot of mainly civil and structural design and fabrication will always be site specific.
The KLT-40S reactor is a variant of the KLT-40 reactors developed for and installed in the Taymyr icebreakers back in the late 1980s. It should have been cheap, as it's a known quantity with a long track record.
Electricity from HydroQuebec comes from hydro dams in the north (James Bay and Churchill, Labrador) of the province to interties at the US border. They're using 735kV and 765kV AC for their long runs.
In my own province of Manitoba, there are three sets of high voltage direct current (450kVdc) lines that go between 900kms and 1300kms to population centres and the US border. The first one built in the early 1970s.
There are a number of HVDC lines in the US too, California has some that have been in service for 50+ years.
I was curious, so I checked to see the current longest ultra-high voltage dc transmission line:
The Changji-Guquan ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission line in China is the world’s first transmission line operating at 1,100kV voltage.
Owned and operated by state-owned State Grid Corporation of China, the 1,100kV DC transmission line also covers the world’s longest transmission distance and has the biggest transmission capacity globally.
The transmission line traverses for a total distance of 3,324km (2065 miles) and is capable of transmitting up to 12GW of electricity.
As a general rule of thumb, HVAC lines will be somewhere around 5-6% line loss per 1000kms, and HVDC somewhere around 3%/1000kms
Vogtle 3 & 4 are AP1000s. Construction started in 2013 (preliminary work had started before this, but a design change halted it). Unit 3 was originally supposed to complete commissioning in 2017, but only happened last year. Unit 4 should be online this year. The initial $12B budget went to $14B at the start of construction, but will end up somewhere over $30B.
V.C . Summer in South Carolina has a similar project with two AP1000s. The initial budget was $9B, but the project was cancelled while under construction when projections put the total cost over $23B.
There have been 6 EPRs built, Flamanville-3, Olkiluoto-3, Taishan-1 & 2, and Hinkley Point C (2 units).
All of them are/were massively over budget and behind schedule.
Olkiluoto started construction in 2005, was supposed to complete commissioning in 2010, but only came online last year. Costs went from €3B to somewhere over €11B, the contract 'not-to-exceed' amount.
Flamanville started construction in 2007, was supposed to complete commissioning in 2012, but is projected to complete commissioning late this year. Costs went from €3.3B to somewhere over €20B.
Hinkley Point C is still under construction. It's difficult to put an actual start date because a pile of preliminary site prep work happened prior to real construction starting. Concrete was poured in 2016 though and it was supposed to be operational in 2023. They're now estimating 2028 at the earliest. Costs have gone from £16B to and estimated £35B.
Taishan 1 & 2 started construction in 2009/10 and went online in 2018/19, roughly 5 years late. Unit 1 had to be taken offline for a year due to faulty fuel bundles. Both units have had reliability issues. Costs ended up at the equivalent of $7.5B, almost double the original estimate.
For the record, the largest capacity reactor at Pickering, the 530MWe unit B5 produced 4,042,003MWh in its best year (2019, 87% capacity factor), roughly 300,000 MWh less than current solar installations did in 2023.
Wind and solar capacity has been growing in the vicinity of 11% a year. Nuclear hasn't, as it peaked in 1993 at 15,800MWe, and has been stalled at 13,500 since 2012, when Gentilly 2 was shut down for the last time.
The cost of installed wind is averaging out to roughly $1300/kW globally on an equalized basis. The reactors at Vogtle, the last new-build reactors commissioned in North America, are currently sitting at approximately $13,000/kW.
As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.
That was the problem the first go-around, the Liberals favoured ranked ballot but would consider STV, the NDP wouldn't support anything other than MMP, the CPC wouldn't support any change, and the Bloc just wanted to play spoiler. The Liberals were in a minority on the committee. The only system they could get agreement on was MMP, which is what was recommended.
MMP is good for proportionality, but it can have issues with party lists, members not tied to geographic areas can be difficult to remove, and responsibility for geographic areas is shared, making it easier to dodge. The biggest drawback is explaining the system to a general public who only have known a one vote, one member, one riding system. Ranked or STV are much easier to explain and the current riding system doesn't need to change.
Anyway, the Bloc and CPC were going to campaign hard on calling any change a Liberal power grab. Internal polling (not the dog and pony show web poll) showed that most voters didn't care about the issue, but the "Liberal Power Grab" would gain traction. With the CPC promising to roll back any changes, the whole thing looked more and more like an effort in futility.
In the end, they decided to take their lumps and move on. After all the heat they took for trying, as far as the Liberals are concerned, the issue is dead.
Hasn't made much difference in Australia. Much of the last 50 years has been a coalition between the right-wing Liberals and the right-wing, rural grievance, National party.
Along with different voting systems come different voting patterns. We could easily end up with coalition of the CPC , Bloc, and similar regional grievance parties.
Some people seem to think that a change to a proportional system would shut out the CPC. There is absolutely no guarantee that that would be the case.
Likud in Israel has little popular support, something like 30% in the last election, but they managed to cobble together an assortment of extremist parties to gain power. It's not much different in Italy, Hungary, Türkiye etc, where various fascist parties have gained and maintain control.
Just to be clear, I'm not oppose to change. I'm pointing out that while the voting system is important, having an engaged and educated voter is importanter.
It's been reported alternatively as "undergoing scheduled maintenance", "undergoing unscheduled maintenance", or "system failure due to cold". Scheduled maintenance is BS, no one schedules that for peak seasonal demand times. Who knows about the other two.
With the market setup in Alberta, those plants going down caused a spike in electricity spot prices. Generators can make a windfall profit in tight supply times. Residences without contracts will see their price go to something like 32¢/kWh. With the way the Alberta market rules are set up now, there are no penalties for generators voluntarily shutting down in order to bump prices. It's basically the same market manipulation that Enron was pulling twenty years ago.
Alberta has the highest provincial electricity costs, on average 25¢/kWh, Saskatchewan is second at 20¢/kWh, with the others trailing off from there. Manitoba is something like 10.8¢/kWh and Quebec is cheapest at 8¢/kWh. (typical costs for first 1000kWh including distribution and other fees)
That's not true. The Westinghouse AP1000 got type approval in 2011. The EPR got type approval in the early 2000s. Both are GEN III+ reactors, which are semi-modular and have reduced length and number of pipe-runs and number of pumps, valves and so on. They've got 60 year design lives compared to 30 years for the typical Gen II design. It didn't stop them from being more expensive to build than the prior reactor types.
The EPR2 is currently undergoing certification. It would be a brave utility to roll the dice on a new, untested version of the EPR after the fiascos at Flamanville, Olkiluoto, Taishan and Hinckley.
SMRs to date have been one failure after another. NuScale just cancelled the Idaho project in spite of receiving $4B in government subsidies. X-Energy cancelled plans to go public and laid off 100 staff. Oklo’s Aurora reactor license application was so poor that it was rejected almost immediately by the NRC. Rolls Royce has announced that their £500B SMR program will run out of cash by the end of the year, and so on.
New cost estimates from TerraPower and XEnergy as part of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Deployment Program are likely to reveal substantially higher cost estimates for the deployment of those new reactor technologies. This would confirm other independent studies on SMR economics.
Four AP1000s have been built in China. The Chinese also have an agreement with Westinghouse to further develop the design, so more are under construction, but those are heavily modified Chinese variants.
Four AP1000s were under construction in the US, two at the Vogtle generating station in Georgia, and two at the V.C Summer plant in South Carolina. The V.C. Summer reactors were cancelled during construction when the initial estimate was revised from $9B to $23B. The Unit 3 at Vogtle has finally completed commissioning and is online, and unit 4 should be completed this year. Costs have exploded from $14B estimate at the beginning of construction to the vicinity of $35B.
There are another 5 reactors planned for Turkey and Poland. I'm not sure where they're at currently.
For the EPR, the first unit to start construction was Olkiluoto-3 in Finland in 2005. It was supposed to complete commissioning in 2010, but finally was completed in 2022 and entered service in 2023. Costs went from €3.3B to €11B
Taishan 1 & 2 started construction in 2009 and were supposed to be completed in 2013. Taishan-1 entered service in 2018, and Taishan-2 in 2019. Though the third EPR project to start construction, these were the first in service. The final $7.5B cost was roughly double the estimate. Since then, unit 1 was offline for a year due to issues with the fueling. There have been some other reliability issues, some causing brief downtime.
Flamanville-3 started construction in 2007, was supposed to be commissioned in 2012, but is currently projected to be in service late this year. Costs bloated from €3B to a projected €20B at completion.
Hinkley Point C started construction of two EPRs in 2017, though a lot of site prep work started well prior to that. It was supposed to be online in 2023. Currently they're projecting 2028. Costs have gone from the initial £16B to a projected £33B.
The average age of a French reactor is 37 years. They get an initial license for thirty years then apply for ten year extensions. They have 56 operational reactors now, and have an ongoing 'grand carénage' refurbishment for mostly the larger units. The estimate for that was in the vicinity of €55B, though has shifted some what. The smaller, older units are being taken out of service.
More often than not, older reactors in the US are taken out of service rather than refurbished due to the economics. Globally there are 407-413 (definitions vary) operational reactors, down from 438 at the peak in 2002.
As the federal government's national dental insurance program continues to roll out, a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argues that the plan leaves too many Canadians without coverage and need an additional $1.45 billion in funding.
HSR is 3x the cost of conventional passenger rail. HSR also doesn't get freight revenue to help defray costs, the traditional way NA passenger rail routes were supported. All revenue is either through ticket sales or government subsidies.
Compounding that, conventional passenger rail hasn't been profitable since at least the 1950s, one of the reasons both CP and CN were all too eager to pawn off their passenger rolling stock to VIA in the early 70s.
Over the last 3 years, the French rail company SNCF has needed a €35B injection from the government to remain solvent and cover ongoing expenses. This is above existing subsidies.
The German rail company is in similar shape. Deutsche Bahn estimates that it needs €14B for infrastructure upgrades. Their 'on time' performance is now down to 75%, which is very low for them.
In China, an estimated 90% of their HSR routes are unprofitable. It is unclear how far the central government will go to prop up these routes.
It always boils down to "speed costs, how fast can you afford to go?" It's also not a linear relationship.
Regular, reliable rail makes sense. It's much cheaper to build, cheaper to maintain and the rolling stock is cheaper too. There's also the energy demand, it increases in proportion to the square of velocity. HSR is just too expensive for the limited benefits.
Almost all of the wear on our roads is from truck traffic, with one maxxed out tractor trailer equaling the wear caused by roughly 10,000 personal vehicles. HSR does nothing to alleviate that.
It's not just cars, now is it? Thirty percent of all freight in NA is carried by truck (compared to 70% in Europe). If we focus in on "last mile" it's near 100%. Also, depending on jurisdiction, the gas tax and licensing fees pay for the road infrastructure. If you don't have a car, you're not contributing.
That's why the costs of road infrastructure were initially tolerated, with personal use secondary. Once people got used to the freedom, and car ownership exploded, road works were emphasized.
Having said that, HSR, does nothing for commute times. That's the domain of buses, light rail, trams, subways and conventional rail. All of which have been neglected, but that's a separate issue. HSR is also energy intensive, as energy required to move an object is proportional to the square of velocity.
The tracks have to be pretty much prefect to maintain stability. Given the amount of frost heaving we get, that 3x the cost of conventional rail might be extremely optimistic. Sections of track in Sweden, for instance, have been reduced from 200km/h, very much the lower limit of what constitutes HSR, to 130km/h, not far off the current speeds here on some sections, due to track deterioration.
I would like to see all rail infrastructure owned by a crown corp, with private rail companies competing with their own rolling stock, both freight and passenger. They'd pay the crown corp for track/station use, with those funds paying for maintenance and upgrades. That move would greatly improve the rail situation here.
As far as HSR, it an expensive boondoggle waiting to happen.
Environmental assessments, negotiations with First Nations, land acquisition/expropriations, not to mention that every little town along any proposed route would be pushing for a stop. Throw in assorted loons and NIMBYS and their legal efforts, and it's a wonder anything ever gets built. The fact that there are more people makes it much more difficult, not easier.
The initial transcontinental railways were very much a partnership between business and government. And a hugely corrupt one at that.
The Trans Mountain pipeline just going from Alberta to BC port is running at $30B currently. Much of that is due to opposition from locals and their legal efforts and protests. It's a hugely easier construction/engineering effort to put in a pipeline than an HSR line. Grades aren't important, a ditch is dug and the line is plopped in then covered. They're deep enough and flexible enough that most heaving won't affect it. Throw in some booster stations and Bob's-your-uncle.
HSR tracks have to be near perfect to ensure stability and there are tight limits on allowable grades/radius etc. Just the route surveys would be a huge challenge.
Alerts demonstrate why flexibility is needed in Ottawa’s Clean Energy Regulations to decarbonize the country’s electricity grids, according to energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach.
Here is the average total cost of electricity by province, based on a monthly consumption of 1,000kWh:
Northwest Territories 41.0¢/kWh
Nunavut 35.4¢/kWh
Alberta 25.8¢/kWh
Saskatchewan 19.9¢/kWh
Yukon Territory 18.7¢/kWh
Prince Edward Island 18.4¢/kWh
Nova Scotia 18.3¢/kWh
Nfld & Labrador 14.8¢/kWh
Ontario 14.1¢/kWh
New Brunswick 13.9¢/kWh
British Columbia 11.4¢/kWh
Manitoba 10.2¢/kWh
Quebec 7.8¢/kWh
A Yellowknife man bought a fully electric truck, expecting to install the 80 amp Level 2 charger it came with at his home. Then he found out he'd need to pay $12,000 to upgrade a transformer in his neighbourhood to make it work.
The $12000 charge from the utility is a "fuck off" fee.
It's not like the next person to build a house in the area is going to pay for a new distribution transformer. That's not how things work.
He made the right call in just getting the 30A charger. Even if he drained it down to almost nothing, he'd still be fully charged overnight.
The Mirai has the novelty of being a hydrogen car. Pretty decent car all around if you're in a place that has hydrogen infrastructure.
The Supra is a badge engineered BMW Z4. Some die-hard Toyota fans have a hard time with that. Two seat sports cars are a pretty small niche in general.
“The AER estimates over $45 billion in remediation and reclamation liabilities in the oilsands. This number may be a dramatic underestimate, with figures in leaked, official presentations suggesting as much as $130 billion in liabilities covered by less than $2 billion in security deposits,” University of Calgary School of...
Halfway through the pristine miniseries that precedes the most incisive show about post-9/11 America you realize this is your Battlestar Galactica now. Not the bubblegum, brightly lit ’70s classic, but this, the gritty, claustrophobic, white-knuckle reboot that looks nothing like the original boot....
AI-powered misinformation and disinformation campaigns are a “threat of a generation” but the government’s ability to do anything about it is “quite limited,” says the prime minister’s national security adviser. Article content...
Classify the social media conglomerates as publishers. Make them liable for anything that goes up on their sites, the same as newspapers or TV stations.
Put the onus on them to police their sites, or pay the price for sloppy/no moderation.
I was in junior high when the Constitution was ratified in 1982. We were each given a copy of it and went through it in a fair amount of detail considering our age.
The last power plant I worked on was Chinook generating station near Swift Current, a 350MW combined cycle plant for SaskPower. At $605M is was $75M under budget, you will never hear that on a nuclear project.
The various wind installations are typically fairly close to budget and schedule as well. Hydro is problematic, and that does show in cost overruns, because it is very difficult to predict the geotechnical situation for a given site until excavation starts. Given the stress on the structures, even small differences accumulate rapidly.
The worst thermal plant projects are consistently nuclear.
The refurbishment of Lepreau was supposed to cost $1.5B and take 18 months, it ended up taking $2.5B and just under 4 years to complete.
Flammanville-3 started construction in 2007 was supposed to be operational in 2012. They're now estimating it will complete commissioning in 2024. Costs have gone from €3.3B to €20B+.
Olkiluoto-3 started construction in 2005, was supposed to be operational in 2010, but only completed commissioning in 2022. Costs went from €3B to €11B, the not to exceed amount in the contract.
Hinkley Point C started about 2016, has been pushed back to 2028 and costs have gone from £16B to an estimated £32B.
Vogtle has been covered, but the V.C Summer plant was no better. Initial estimate was $9B, but the project was cancelled while under construction when the estimated total was projected to exceed $23B.
New-wave reactor technology could kick-start a nuclear renaissance — and the US is banking on it (www.cnn.com)
Off the Siberian coast, not far from Alaska, a Russian ship has been docked at port for four years. The Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, sends energy to around 200,000 people on land using next-wave nuclear technology: small modular reactors....
Ontario to announce refurbishment of four reactors at Pickering Plant (www.theglobeandmail.com)
Trudeau and Singh's teams quietly planning electoral reform legislation (www.ctvnews.ca)
As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.
Danielle Smith warned about 'net-zero' 2035. Alberta power grid's woes showed up early (www.cbc.ca)
New dental care plan leaves out 4.4 million uninsured Canadians: report (www.ctvnews.ca)
As the federal government's national dental insurance program continues to roll out, a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argues that the plan leaves too many Canadians without coverage and need an additional $1.45 billion in funding.
Will Canada Ever Have High-Speed Rail? | The Walrus (thewalrus.ca)
Alberta emergency power alert underlines challenge of energy transition on Prairies (www.cbc.ca)
Alerts demonstrate why flexibility is needed in Ottawa’s Clean Energy Regulations to decarbonize the country’s electricity grids, according to energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach.
He drives an electric truck in Yellowknife, but his home can't handle the charger it came with (www.cbc.ca)
A Yellowknife man bought a fully electric truck, expecting to install the 80 amp Level 2 charger it came with at his home. Then he found out he'd need to pay $12,000 to upgrade a transformer in his neighbourhood to make it work.
The Toyota Mirai Outsold the Supra in 2023 (www.roadandtrack.com)
Hydrogen infrastructure may be limited, but Toyota's experimental Mirai is still outselling its flagship performance car.
Alberta's oilsands cleanup piggy bank 'unfit for purpose,' researchers say (ca.finance.yahoo.com)
“The AER estimates over $45 billion in remediation and reclamation liabilities in the oilsands. This number may be a dramatic underestimate, with figures in leaked, official presentations suggesting as much as $130 billion in liabilities covered by less than $2 billion in security deposits,” University of Calgary School of...
Seth Meyers on ‘Battlestar Galactica’: ‘The Most Incisive Show About Post-9/11 America’ (variety.com)
Halfway through the pristine miniseries that precedes the most incisive show about post-9/11 America you realize this is your Battlestar Galactica now. Not the bubblegum, brightly lit ’70s classic, but this, the gritty, claustrophobic, white-knuckle reboot that looks nothing like the original boot....
Disinformation is the 'threat of a generation,' but Canada is struggling to deal with it: National security adviser (theprovince.com)
AI-powered misinformation and disinformation campaigns are a “threat of a generation” but the government’s ability to do anything about it is “quite limited,” says the prime minister’s national security adviser. Article content...
‘People are confused’: Survey suggests Canadians need education on Charter rights (www.winnipegfreepress.com)
Non-Paywall Article
Canada vows to triple nuclear power production by 2050 | CTV (london.ctvnews.ca)