Comment by chickenbig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chickenbig | Hacker News Reader

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> I also assume there's a lot of room for cost reduction in wind over the next decade

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/20/giant-windf...

What are the reasons behind believing prices will reduce further?

> I'm guessing Nuclear won't see the same level of changes

  Parsons says the second reactor is being built 20% more quickly than the first one.
  Parsons says he expects that Sizewell will be built between 20% and 30% faster than the second Hinkley reactor.

In addition I would think reduced financing costs (risk reduction and sharing) will help bring prices down.

> What are the reasons behind believing prices will reduce further?

Economies of scale and room for technological/process innovation. The fact that solar reduced so significantly and battery costs too. This article seems a bit cherry picked about a specific project and not a global trend in costs. Offshore will naturally take time to become competitive since it requires complex installation and processes, but those seem like solvable problems for an admittedly laymen as myself.

> Economies of scale and room for technological/process innovation.

This applies when going from 1 to 2 to 4 reactors.

See https://www.oecd-nea.org/mdep/events/conf-2023/presentations... page 27 for the Chinese approach to HPR1000 (Hualong One) innovation.

Plus the linked article mentioned improvements to manufacturing outside the constraints of the containment.

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