Um, it costs $60-90k. It *is* a car for rich people. Full stop.

Graphite does burn in some circumstances, and it's a myth that it does not.

  * Fresh, pure graphite under atmospheric conditions with no additional source of heat will erode at high temperatures, but not self-sustain. Which is still quite bad.
  * Any alteration to those starting conditions can yield a self-sustaining graphite fire. That is, A) alteration to the graphite structure due to long periods of intense radiation bombardment and/or infiltration, B) significant impurities or defects in the graphite during production, C) non-atmospheric conditions, such as high temperature steam instead of just air, or elevated pressures, D) continued input of nuclear decay heat, self-sustaining the erosion process as an effective continuous burn.

Your steel mill is a great example, as they're constantly burning through graphite electrodes (each lasts only about a week). To reiterate the significance of that: if that were nuclear core material, it'd all be in the air in a week.

When you think about it, this is the ultimate way for a rich person to use their money to flip the bird at other cars as they go by.

* My car is bigger than yours!
* My car is cooler than yours!
* My car is faster than yours!
* My car is greener than yours!

Etc, all at once. The other car might possibly best them in one category, but definitely not all. You just *know* there are plenty of rich people who would throw down money on something like that.

That's the problem: regular ambient outdoor air is far more corrosive than indoor air (or better, an intentionally low moisture/low oxygen gas gap). And it's far worse if either the air is exposed to cooling tower mist or ocean air.

The reality is that steel vessels leak over time. Its what they do. And it's really, really dang hard to stop them. Whether you're talking about ships, water tanks, or yes, nuclear reactor containment structures. Who cares what pressure it's designed to handle when you have a Hole In The Side?

The AP1000 has no secondary containment vessel. It's a step backward. It's a single steel shell with a big tank of water over it. One layer. Lots of welds. In contact with corrosive air. Surrounded by a building which is, instead of trying contain releases, designed to encourage them them to vent (in order to help cool the shell).

$7/W doesn't sound that much to me

Even with PV, which is generally more expensive than thermal, FirstSolar is producing cells for something like $0.75/W nowadays. Now, there's a lower capacity factor, and you still have installation costs, but still... that's it, your only costs. No relevant disaster liability, no fueling, no decommissioning, none of that. Just a tiny bit of regular maintenance.

Please point to where I said that the AP1000 uses graphite.

I assume I don't have to explain the meaning of "for example"?

no it isn't.

Yes, it is. It's a single-layer containment structure; there is no secondary containment. Quite the opposite, the outer shell is designed such that it would encourage the output of any fission products that escape primary containment. The inner shell is thicker than normal, but it's your only line of defense. And it's just plain steel -- with a huge number of welds (each weld being a potential point of failure) and surrounded by a shell that encourages convection of warm, high moisture air (or even salt air in seaside locations).

Corrosion has been a *huge* issue for nuclear reactors, and corrosion problems have been far more common than the NRC has ever predicted (and the record of lousy jobs being done on inspection... well, let's just say it's pretty bad). In this particular case, your main threat is damage like the Beaver Valley hole -- a hole that went right through the primary containment vessel between inspections and was found two years ago (which would be far worse in a design like the AP1000). Here you have a steel shell channelling oxygen and moisture-laden air up against the steel through areas that are difficult (and in some cases, outright impossible) to inspect, and to top it off? A giant steel tank of water overhead (have you ever seen an old water tank that *doesn't* at some point spring leaks and drip on what's below it?)

Overconfidence is always the greatest weakness of nuclear power plant designs, and I see it galore in a lot of the new designs like the AP1000.

Per-kilowatt I'm amazed at how expensive this is. $7/W just in construction costs? Yeah, I know nuclear has a higher capacity factor than wind and solar, but still... ouch.

And the article summary repeats the whole "passively cooled" thing as if that equals "safe". :P First off, it's not even a true passive system. The "passive" system must successfully activate within 30 minutes, and only works for 72 hours. It's only passive in that it doesn't require electricity once started, and assuming that it works properly. Secondly, "passive" does not automatically equal 'safe' anyway. For example, a number of graphite-moderated reactors have been declared "safe" because of a negative void coefficient, so if you lose your working fluid and air gets in, the reaction still slows down. Great, except that hot graphite *burns* or otherwise erodes (burning graphite is what spread the Chernobyl radiation).

In general, "passive safety" is an excuse to cut down on containment structures, which have saved our collective behinds many times over. And the AP1000 is no exception, with its bargain-basement containment design. I'm amazed that the construction cost on these is still this high despite the corner-cutting.

... my data says that you can get a job working with FOSS in Iceland. Looking to move til klakkans? ;)

Seriously, though, it seems odd to me to hear that you've been having trouble finding ads for FOSS jobs; I never found them particularly rare at all.

Ah, is this going to turn into Estonia vs. the Nordics flamewar? The timing is great: this ;) Estonia is a recurring character there.