3 ms·

Natural gas can presumably be easily switched on and off to take up the intermittent 50% of the demand. So the realistic combined price is somewhere around $47.

Natural gas can presumably be easily switched on and off to take up the intermittent 50% of the demand. So the realistic combined price is somewhere around $47. Why then build nuclear at $97 ??

alex_hitchins 10y ago
I'm not sure how responsive gas plants are, I believe it can take an non-insignificant time to spin up, when demand at that point my have subsided. There is always a baseline need for energy, seems most sensible to me this comes from a modern, nuclear source and not the relics we rely on today.
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  I am certain that nuclear power takes days to "spin up," so even if gas plants are not responsive (it is my impression that they are), it is still sensible to compare them. The real reason to consider nuclear is that there is more than construction cost, there is also fuel cost. The fuel over the life of the nuclear plant is considerably cheaper than for a gas plant. Of course, even that isn't the whole story: I don't know how total operating cost and negative externalities balance out. EDIT: I misread; it appears that those numbers are total cost per MWh produced, not construction cost. In that case, it appears that gas definitely beats nuclear hands down (ignoring the CO2 problem).
  - alex_hitchins 10y ago
    > I am certain that nuclear power takes days to "spin up," Yes, which is why you would want it for base load rather than responsive. If we invested in nuclear technology rather than condemn it all as a terrible venture we could produce far cheaper and cleaner nuclear plants.
    - kinofcain 10y ago
      Interestingly the need for base load is going away as we increase the mix of renewables: plants that can't load follow are becoming less useful and more expensive to operate. Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California is being shut down in a few years mostly due to environmental concerns but also in part because it can't be spun up and down easily to adjust for the output of the state's increasing mix of fluctuating solar and wind production. We're headed towards a mix that looks like almost entirely renewables and peakers, or maybe eventually renewables and storage, if things like the tesla battery installation work out.
      - alex_hitchins 10y ago
        Storage is the key. There are a lot of places where renewables aren't stable enough and storage just isn't achievable yet on the grid scale. Lots of exciting work in this area and it's interesting to see where things are heading however I think nuclear is underfunded and could have a much more positive role in our energy needs. Maybe it's the BNFL ad's as a kid imprinted in my mind.
  - fulafel 10y ago
    You don't toggle the plants between 100% and "off" with nuclear, but you can still go from 60% to 100% in a few hours.
- rgbrenner 10y ago
  gas plants are already used to compensate for variability in wind and solar.
x2398dh1 10y ago
There's a bit of misdirection employed in distilling every consideration in building a power plant down into one single dollar per whatever ratio. Other factors may include volume and risk of waste byproduct, amortization and duration of a particular type of power plant, geographic factors coupled with insurance costs, potential economic factors of switching everything over to a particular technology, number of suppliers in the market, etc. If the entire USA were to switch over or away from a particular technology, that's going to have market effects on all of the other numbers...e.g. dollar figure $X is not static, but rather each dollar figure is dependent upon the others in ways that are not covered in this one paper.

Natural gas can presumably be easily switched on and off to take up the intermittent 50% of the demand. So the realistic combined price is somewhere around $47. Why then build nuclear at $97 ??

alex_hitchins 10y ago

I'm not sure how responsive gas plants are, I believe it can take an non-insignificant time to spin up, when demand at that point my have subsided. There is always a baseline need for energy, seems most sensible to me this comes from a modern, nuclear source and not the relics we rely on today.

goodcanadian 10y ago
I am certain that nuclear power takes days to "spin up," so even if gas plants are not responsive (it is my impression that they are), it is still sensible to compare them. The real reason to consider nuclear is that there is more than construction cost, there is also fuel cost. The fuel over the life of the nuclear plant is considerably cheaper than for a gas plant. Of course, even that isn't the whole story: I don't know how total operating cost and negative externalities balance out. EDIT: I misread; it appears that those numbers are total cost per MWh produced, not construction cost. In that case, it appears that gas definitely beats nuclear hands down (ignoring the CO2 problem).
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  > I am certain that nuclear power takes days to "spin up," Yes, which is why you would want it for base load rather than responsive. If we invested in nuclear technology rather than condemn it all as a terrible venture we could produce far cheaper and cleaner nuclear plants.
  - kinofcain 10y ago
    Interestingly the need for base load is going away as we increase the mix of renewables: plants that can't load follow are becoming less useful and more expensive to operate. Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California is being shut down in a few years mostly due to environmental concerns but also in part because it can't be spun up and down easily to adjust for the output of the state's increasing mix of fluctuating solar and wind production. We're headed towards a mix that looks like almost entirely renewables and peakers, or maybe eventually renewables and storage, if things like the tesla battery installation work out.
    - alex_hitchins 10y ago
      Storage is the key. There are a lot of places where renewables aren't stable enough and storage just isn't achievable yet on the grid scale. Lots of exciting work in this area and it's interesting to see where things are heading however I think nuclear is underfunded and could have a much more positive role in our energy needs. Maybe it's the BNFL ad's as a kid imprinted in my mind.
- fulafel 10y ago
  You don't toggle the plants between 100% and "off" with nuclear, but you can still go from 60% to 100% in a few hours.
rgbrenner 10y ago
gas plants are already used to compensate for variability in wind and solar.

x2398dh1 10y ago

There's a bit of misdirection employed in distilling every consideration in building a power plant down into one single dollar per whatever ratio. Other factors may include volume and risk of waste byproduct, amortization and duration of a particular type of power plant, geographic factors coupled with insurance costs, potential economic factors of switching everything over to a particular technology, number of suppliers in the market, etc. If the entire USA were to switch over or away from a particular technology, that's going to have market effects on all of the other numbers...e.g. dollar figure $X is not static, but rather each dollar figure is dependent upon the others in ways that are not covered in this one paper.