We know why nuclear build costs are soaring — and Australia faces the biggest increases

Global price spikes in construction materials resulting from the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine have helped push infrastructure costs up everywhere, but significant blowouts in the construction costs of nuclear power plants are a much older story (when Crikey first covered nuclear power in Australia, in 2009, the first thing we pointed out was the cost blowouts). But there’s widespread agreement historically about the cause of cost blowouts right up to the Vogtle reactors in Georgia (the first new reactors in the US for decades, which ended up US$20 billion over their initial US$14 billion cost, inflicting massive cost increases for power on consumers) and Flamanville in France (€10 billion over its initial €3 billion cost): cost increases have been driven by increased regulation. “Building nuclear plants cost effectively requires developing and maintaining an experienced nuclear workforce,” one report concluded, noting “the lack of project management experience for nuclear plant construction (one of the most complex and expensive capital projects in existence) hinders delivering new plants on time and on budget.” Australia has no such skills and would have to import them all — at a time when the world’s nuclear workforce is approaching retirement and countries with established nuclear power industries are struggling to find workers for their own projects.

Author: Bernard Keane

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