First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

Exactly what I was thinking

It like those highspeed rail projects that are finally getting going in the US, they're over budget because a lot of people now have to be trained on how to work on such a project due to either lost knowledge or new stuff they're learning during the process

Yep. The failed dual reactor project in SC that also used the AP1000s was a gigantic clusterfuck. Most of the major contractors had essentially no experience on projects of the scale and it resulted in massive cost overruns, delays, and a compounding web of fraud and lies to shareholders and regulators that wound up in utility executives in prison and the eventual sale of the entire utility SCANA to Dominion Energy.

Cost overruns in the nuclear industry are nothing new. It's been the norm. The AP1000 design used here was supposed to solve some of those issues, but it's been more of the same.

Welders and other tradesmen too. I met a guy from the NRC that said that there were few if any welders certified and knowledgeable enough to work on reactor construction. And this was 15 yrs ago.

Haha, this is insightful, but I worry an incorrect conclusion re: cost and overruns. Yes, lots of extremely experienced engineers have retired; but, the pace even in the 70s, 80s and 90s was oft beset by slowdowns and overruns. See: 9 mile, river bend, rancho seco, comanche peak, and those are just the ones I know off the top of my head.

We need more, but it's a nuclear-and-renewables, not nuclear instead of renewables. I hope smr and other designs get a better shake this time, because climate change doesn't bode well for coastal installations, and frankly, building many more large PWRs isn't going to happen quickly.

Frankly I hope we can turn the experience debt to our advantage - rigorous investigation of all the many options disregarding the established dogma of large PWRs would be good in my view. YMMV.

This is more than a cost issue. It's a knowledge issue. Countries can't lost this type of knowledge otherwise they lost independence as well.

Shitty as that is, at least you're getting a reactor out of it all. I still support renewables over nuclear, primarily for cost-benefit reasons, but it's always good to have some diversity in the generation mix.

This is one of the many reasons that I think nuclear plants should not be corporate owned

I think a lot of stuff that's currently corporate owned shouldn't be but that's a conversation for another time

Edit: Should to shouldn't

Ta payers also subsidize banks, pay for the housing price crisis twice, and the corporatation gets to keep the profits.

Neither is great but at least electricity is something that can keep you alive. Next time power goes out and your food/insulin is about to spoil and there is no heat in your home are you going to yell out "please Warren Buffet fix it!" Or are you going to be very happy to see those line workers doing their jobs?

Specifically rate-payers at least in most places, and the cost for these projects is added to some sort of Global Adjustment applied on top of the KWh price. GA is usually capital projects like those, plus making sure the price is high enough to cover the cost of actually distributing the power. Sometimes electricity can be "free" or even in the negatives in the market for example especially at night, especially if you just commissioned nukes in preparation for something else being decommissioned and now have an overnight surplus that you're trying to incentivize consumption of or give to your neighbors.

I'll watch the video later, but that's poor project management compounded by active underestimation.

As an engineer, it's my ass if my project estimates were so widely off the mark, especially if it were consistent.

Good point, a timeline of capital expenditures would answer where a lot of the money went, though undoubtedly create a few more questions as well.

That's nuclear energy baby