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Construction of new nuclear reactors are major civil engineering projects, but not out of line with capital investment projects in other sectors. For example, in the oil and gas sector, liquefied gas terminals are similar in scale, while new transport infrastructure projects such as airports and bridges may be even larger. Nuclear projects share the characteristic of the others in being designed to provide excellent long term returns to investors, with reactors expected to run for 40-60 years (and possibly beyond).
A nuclear project can be sub-divided into two parts, the so-called nuclear island (accounting for about 60% of the cost) and the non-nuclear part (the remaining 40%). Contracts for new nuclear plants are usually divided into the two parts with the major specialist reactor vendors (above) competing for the nuclear island part and the remainder the subject of bids from a wider range of companies. Nuclear plants are thermal generating units, as much as coal-, oil- and gas-fired units, and the non-nuclear part of the plant, largely the turbine generating set and a lot of pipework, is much the same as with these. Reactor vendors are sometimes closely associated with turbine suppliers, for example Areva with Alstom and Westinghouse now with Doosan, but in principle can be matched with a wider group.
The nuclear island requires a significant amount of concrete work for strength and radiation protection and the installation of major components such a reactor pressure vessels and steam generators. These items for the latest reactors require very large steel forgings and more basic components must be of top quality, certified as “nuclear grade”. In terms of the construction process, some of the latest reactor designs allow for a much greater degree of modular construction with standardized major components being brought to the site from factories some distance away. This represents a reaction against the past practice of building “singleton” reactors bit-by-bit onsite, which proved to delay progress and harm project economics.
Estimates of costs of new reactor projects suffer from the lack of experience of these in the Western world since the 1980s. Nevertheless, experience of building in East Asia suggests that the construction phase, from first concrete to connection to the power grid, can be accomplished in 4 years and at all-in cost of $2-3 billion for a 1000 MWe reactor, scaled up for a larger model. Initial units may cost more than this, owing to first-of-a-kind engineering (FOAKE) costs, but building several near-identical models of one reactor design, particularly several identical units on one site, will push costs down appreciably.
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