1) Have we built enough reactors consistently enough over time to say for sure the experience effects don’t build? I know we effectively stopped in the 80s, but I’m curious if there’s evidence from elsewhere to say nuclear’s indeed different here.
2. Hypothetically, if SMRs lead to a 10-100x increase in volume building, would we see experience effects? At what volume would you expect to see genuine experience effects, or again is nuclear fundamentally different for some reason?
I’ll say my biases are: I’m not surprised we’ve seen limited learning over time for various reasons, I think the size of nuclear projects almost precludes repeat learning, and I do expect if we lower the project size and increase the volume we’d see efficiencies of scale, but I could be convinced that either nuclear is sufficiently different or that even with the SMRs we’re not going to see enough scale to actually recognize efficiencies or learning.
If I had to guess, it's because nuclear power plants take so long to build.
Experience effects occur when an individual or a cohesive group gains experience. But with NPPs taking a long time to build, any individual doesn't go through many iterations in their career. Experience also decays, so if the learning rate is low enough decay should cancel it out.
In contrast, the facilities for building renewable technologies iterate much faster, both on production of individual modules, and in design updates. Installation and planning also have similar high rates of activity.
SMRs might provide a solution, but if they're so fast we have to ask why none of the SMR companies have built any yet.
