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Comment by throwaway2037 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2037

About delays and cost overruns, I highly recommend that people read about the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland. The delays and cost overruns are totally insane, yet they claim (on Wiki):

    Even taking into account all OL3 construction delays the long term LCOE target for all three plants is 30 EUR/MWh. LCOE for the OL3 reactor alone is estimated at 42 EUR/MWh.

My "envelope maths" tells me that generating electricity from OL3 is twice the cost of OL1+OL2: 18 EUR/MWh vs 42 EUR/MWh.

The main Wiki article includes a long list of reasons for delays and cost overruns.

The construction project also included very long term, underground storage. On YouTube, you can find a great, if slightly creepy, documentary about it called "Into Eternity".

View on HN

The long term waste repository is a separate project, it is not included in the same project. The LCOE does include it however, as financing waste storage is mandated in the law. I think what makes the LCOE so low is the fact that the plant vendor offered the construction as a turnkey solution with them covering the risk of overruns. So the price paid by the plant owner does not cover all the construction costs. In fact it's less than half of the costs.

edit: less than half

The French tax payers have through EDF taken a loss of €5-10B on Olkiluoto 3.

Definitely cheap, if you make someone else pay.

EDF was not involved in building Olkiluoto.

EDF bought the bankrupt carcass of Areva to preserve the French nuclear industry. The construction is kept in a separate company, but the French bore the losses.

> but the French bore the losses.

I know, my point is that EDF is not related to that.

> EDF bought the bankrupt carcass of Areva to preserve the French nuclear industry.

Some parts were sent in other entities, like Framatome.

Framatome is owned by EDF.

> Framatome (French pronunciation: [fʁamatɔm]) is a French nuclear reactor business.[1] It is owned by Électricité de France (EDF) (75.5%), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5%), and Assystem (5%).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framatome

When every easily verifiable statement turns out to be a lie like this one, is it any wonder nobody believes you about the ones that aren't?

Excuse me, but have we discussed in the past? You seem to be extremely antagonistic, and I don't exactly know why.

You seem to be expecting people to treat your lies and propaganda as if it's being stated in good faith and I don't exactly know why.

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