This week, we return to nuclear power. Specifically, nuclear construction and “learning curves.” It is intuitive that doing something over and over makes you better at it. In industry, this means driving down costs and timelines and boosting efficiencies. In many industries, the truth of learning curves is readily apparent. However, in Western nuclear construction it has been largely absent for decades. Robbie Stewart, CTO of Alva Energy, joins me to dissect why the nuclear industry struggles with what other industries take for granted, and highlight a few cases in nuclear that managed to buck this trend. From France's standardized reactor fleet to China's recent AP1000 acceleration, we explore the prerequisites for nuclear construction learning and why it takes more than just good engineering.
We discuss:
Wright's Law and its application (or misapplication) to nuclear construction
Why nuclear is fundamentally different from factory-floor manufacturing
The three categories of nuclear learning: fixing mismanagement, technology insertion, and construction optimization
Statistical analysis of what drives successful learning rates in nuclear programs
France's P4 series and South Korea's OPR-1000 as learning success stories
China's dramatic improvements in AP1000 construction times through supply chain mastery
The critical role of integrated project management and utility ownership
Prerequisites for learning: standardized design, sequential builds, and institutional commitment
Why inter-site learning is harder than intra-site learning
The developer model as a potential solution for geographic learning constraints
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