It's not "probably" expensive; it's undeniably very expensive, which is why it's a non-starter in most of the world. Look at South Carolina's fiasco with nuclear...the only country doing nuclear is China, which is known for massive infrastructure spending.
Horror story from a friend who worked in China as a consultant on the power grid back in the mid-aughts. Basically the guy who was leading construction on the plants was working with another who was to supply the concrete for the walls. Problem was, the concrete guy was behind on his "five year plan", so plant guy didn't have enough concrete. Plant guy still has to meet _his_ targets, so he just builds the plants with thinner walls.
Sure it's an anecdote, but the point is China has very loose safety standards and cuts a lot of corners. She's much more okay with losing a few people here and there.
Horror story from my stepfather at Bruce Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario Canada: At least twice a year there was a "secret leak" where he had to come home early but no media was alerted and they had to hire racialized folks from the city to go in and make repairs. He also stole reactor sealer to seal our basement from spring leaks and our basement leaked. And on and on. Canada has very loose safety standards and cuts lots of corners.
> At least twice a year there was a "secret leak" where he had to come home early but no media was alerted...
Uh, [citation needed].
> ... they had to hire racialized folks from the city to go in and make repairs...
Racialized... folks?
> He also stole reactor sealer to seal our basement from spring leaks and our basement leaked.
That might be because, and I'm speculating here, your basement isn't a reactor. I've heard that a sealant for a specific kind of material may not work on literally any other kind of material.
> Canada has very loose safety standards and cuts lots of corners.
While a fair point, no, the last mine stopped operating in 2011 in Thetford Mines, and a total ban was brought in around 2018. The government is investing in some technologies to extract magnesium from the left-overs while neutralizing the remaining fibers [1].
No,France has not built any new nuclear power plant in decades, the only one being built (flammanville 3) is a mess, and there are goals to reduce the share of nuclear to 50%.
No. France is retiring plants and has a nominal plan to retire 30% of their nuclear generating capacity in the next decade.
There is one plant being built at Flammanville. It is 11 years over schedule and 400% over budget, and still not certain that those will be the final numbers.
That's because the international elites that are really running France have decided that it'd be easier to just shift pollution to China and make their money there. There's no sane argument against nuclear today, particularly if you believe in climate change. And yes, you can make anything cost 400% as much, just pile on more regulation and NIMBY-ism, and you'll get there eventually, that's not news.
The Flamanville 3 EPR nuclear reactor is a mess (and I've seen it first hand, working on one of its subsystem a few years ago). The regulations bodies, aka the ASN (Agence de Surete Nucleaire) played its role, and uncovered various issues, most worrying, defects in the reactor vessel itself (and also there was some attempt by the manufacturer to hide these defects). And it's only one of a long chain, the were others like concrete being poured without/insufficient rebar or improper composition, various welding issues on pipes or machinery. And each time, it was not some minor mishaps requiring a quick fix but a major mistake requiring undoing what was done, redoing it properly and causing months of delays.
Basically, this is an Engineering and Project Management failure. On this kind of giant projects, logistic, coordination and management is key, the design is also key (system of systems, interfaces between systems etc) and it failed spectacularly here.
From the political side, despite some calls to just stop the construction from minor parties, the commitment from the politicians to see it built has remained strong all along. And there was also a deep commitment from the French state to the Nuclear industry, with the government bailing out Areva just a few years ago.
The Finish one is not better off, with the same kind of delays. The Chinese ones are in production (after significant delays) but 1) They learn from the mistakes of the first twos 2) They have probably better experience in large projects given the past construction boom in China 3) Some issues were probably put under the carpet as the Chinese government is not exactly renowned for its openness.
