Hi guys, this comment at Next Big Future had me a bit depressed. I thought GenIII reactors were good to rock and roll, but apparently we've got a long way to go.
The ABWRs in Japan have had terrible capacity factors so far. Nobody will touch that design with a ten foot pole until somebody else gets a good result.
"None had a capacity factor above 73% when they operated and two had capacity factors of less than 45%. For the period 2006-10 the four ABWRs had an average load factor of about 45%....Although the NIA Application admits the average capacity factor of about 45% for Japanese ABWRs from 2006-2010, the report doesn't attempt to explain the mysteriously poor performance."(emphasis added) www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2343733/nuclear_power_the_hitachi_abwr_is_not_justified.html
Build time and project costs are incredibly important, but if the ultimate load factor of the plant is half of what was expected....