(1) If you could build a nuclear reactor for the sticker price, there's the problem that other energy sources got cheaper, specifically natural gas fired Brayton cycle turbines. To justify nuclear power at the sticker price you need to price carbon emissions.
(2) Nuclear power plants cost many more times to build than the sticker price. Some people blame delays on opposition to nuclear power, but the delays seem intrinsic to the process in industry. AP1000 construction was hung up in the U.S. because it was hung up in China (where environmentalists get shot) and it was hung up there because the factory had trouble make a pump that was supposed to be easier to make.
On one hand you could make the case for a real accounting of the type (2) problem (which I suspect is a game of "Poker" where suppliers quote a lowball price because they know buyers will keep putting chips in the pot.) But I think a more radical approach to the type (1) problem is necessary.
There is no engineering reason for those reactors to cost $10bln. Literally zero.
There are lots and lots of other reasons why they will probably cost even more than $10bln/ea though.
Just like there is literally zero engineering reason for the ‘high speed’ rail in California to cost the insane sums it is currently consuming, and will continue to consume.
The reason why the old ones are ‘better’ is because they already are operating under existing approvals, so the tarpits don’t work on them.
If we wanted to build cost effective and safe reactors, we could, and have many times in the past. Near as I can tell, almost no one does (compared to some cool new idea, or what becomes a one off, or ends up going back to the drawing board 50 times - all while getting paid), so we don't.
Same with high speed rail (and a bunch of other pork projects in CA), same with subways in many big cities, etc.
Because in this thread someone was claiming steam turbine costs were why nuclear was ‘expensive’, which is about as legit. Also in these nearby threads have been discussions about waste disposal (similar levels of not actually a problem), etc.
You’re similarly ignoring and seem to want to pretend that these costs are somehow fundamental to nuclear, despite me providing evidence it’s a general problem we have with building several types of things now, and is more political BS than anything fundamental to do with nuclear as a technology.
If the same thing happens to building roads, is it because ‘roads are expensive’? Or because ‘we screwed ourselves up even more so now we can’t build roads without going bankrupt’?