Advice across the board is that nuclear power plants take a really long time and cost a lot of money. They almost always go far over time and budget. And they’re expensive to operate. Why is that so?
In: Engineering
Safety was mentioned, what might not be obvious is that safety/quality extends to the construction and the people who build the plant, even those who a lot of us with white collar jobs consider less skilled
There is a significant amount of water and steam piping in a nuclear power plant – water is heated by the energy from the nuclear reactor, cooling the reactor core. Depending on the type of reactor that water either turns directly into radioactive steam, which then powers the generator turbines, or else is circulated to boil water via a heat exchanger creating non-radioactive steam, which is used to power the turbines.
Either way you have really hot radioactive water and high pressure steam running through pipes – leaks in the welds that join those pipes would be extremely dangerous. In order to ensure the welds are high quality the pipe fitters that do that work in my state (OH) are required to periodically have their welding skills examined by state inspectors, both visually and via X-ray, and they receive a metal stamp with which to stamp every weld they make during the construction process. Not every welder is capable of meeting the quality standards, so jobs requiring them may pay higher wages, and certainly pull from a smaller labor pool, leading to higher construction costs.
Note that you have some of the same requirements in any plant that uses steam generation – coal fired plants commonly use steam turbines as well. But nuclear power plants can require a higher level of certification than a “regular” steam fitting certification.
Latest Answers