Once again: the average time to construct a nuclear power plant is around 7.5 years. Now you can focus all your attention on plants that take longer than those, and you can falsely believe that those outliers are the norm.
But that does not change the fact that they are not. The average was, is, and continues to be 7.5 years. The median is actually a bit lower.
> Additionally in 2022 up to half of their fleet was down for corrosion inspections...
Planned and scheduled corrosion inspections. They have regular inspections, seems like a Good Thing™ to me, which they delayed during COVID. So they scheduled them for the summer of 2022. They always schedule them for the summer because that's when electricity demand in France is lowest.
These days, in addition to demand being lowest, supply is large because summer is when all that over-provisioned PV delivers most...just when other demand is lowest. So a good time to schedule such routine maintenance and inspections.
Because nuclear power can be scheduled. Unlike wind and solar. Which just happen whenever Mother Nature feels like it. Big difference.
> the average time to construct a nuclear power plant is around 7.5 years
That's dumb.
"The average time taken to build 441 reactors operational today was 7.5 years."
Most of the reactors operational today are decades old.
Check how long it takes to build an airport. 50 years ago and now. You can build faster in China (guess why, you can also build coal powerplants very fast in China, even though the air quality is already shit), but not in Europe and the US. None of the EPRs in Europe are built in-time and/or budget. Exactly the opposite, even though the constructing company sits in France and is state owned.
They chose not to stick to their typical schedule, prioritizing COVID instead.
> [average construction time of 7.5 years] That's dumb.
Only in the universe of reality-denial. In the Real World™ it is accurate.
> "The average time taken to build 441 reactors operational today was 7.5 years."
Yes. Unlike you, I don't have to look only at the most extreme outliers to make my case. Because my case doesn't need distortion.
> Most of the reactors operational today are decades old.
Yes, they last a long time. Which is good. Alas, since they built so many so quickly and they then didn't expand further and didn't need to replace the existing ones because they last a long time, they didn't keep the expertise of building alive very well. That was bad.
Anyway, if you think that this means construction was only fast in the old days, you would, once a agin, be incorrect.
The reactors finished in 2022 were finished in...drumrolll..around 7.5 years.
And in fact most of the outliers are in the past.
> None of the EPRs ...
And once again, you focus on the currently most problematic design, which also happens to be brand new, so at the beginning of its learning curve...
> ...in Europe ...
...built in the region that has built hardly any plants or reactors in the last two-three decades.
Single examples.
However, hop over to Statistia and you will find, again, that the plants finished in 2022 were finished in around 7.5 years. Just like the ones before.
"Overall, this picture suggests that nuclear plants don’t take a really long time to build (with a few exceptions). Most are built in 8 to 10 years. Many are built much faster."
"The data suggests that the world is not getting slower. Times vary a bit from decade to decade but average times are not slower than in the 1970s or 1980s."
So no, your singular examples notwithstanding we are not getting slower.
The EPR is an outlier.
Once again: the average time to construct a nuclear power plant is around 7.5 years. Now you can focus all your attention on plants that take longer than those, and you can falsely believe that those outliers are the norm.
But that does not change the fact that they are not. The average was, is, and continues to be 7.5 years. The median is actually a bit lower.
https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucl...
> Additionally in 2022 up to half of their fleet was down for corrosion inspections...
Planned and scheduled corrosion inspections. They have regular inspections, seems like a Good Thing™ to me, which they delayed during COVID. So they scheduled them for the summer of 2022. They always schedule them for the summer because that's when electricity demand in France is lowest.
These days, in addition to demand being lowest, supply is large because summer is when all that over-provisioned PV delivers most...just when other demand is lowest. So a good time to schedule such routine maintenance and inspections.
Because nuclear power can be scheduled. Unlike wind and solar. Which just happen whenever Mother Nature feels like it. Big difference.