3 ms·
"Reactors built with extra safety features and more robust cooling systems to avoid a Fukushima-like disaster are expensive, while the costs of wind and solar p
by woodandsteel 8y ago
"Reactors built with extra safety features and more robust cooling systems to avoid a Fukushima-like disaster are expensive, while the costs of wind and solar power continue to plummet: they are now 20% cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants in China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Moreover, high construction costs make nuclear a risky investment. "
So much for the argument that nuclear is cost-efficient if your country just does things the way the Chinese do them.
It seems that if your country is going to invest a given amount of money in replacing fossil fuels, then you get more carbon emission reduction if you put it all in renewables as compared to part renewable and part nuclear.
- Gibbon1 8y agoI think often under appreciated is that nuclear and coal plants are complex integrated machines. And a lot of the components are expensive one off parts, have long lead times, and have to fit together with mating parts perfectly or there is hell to pay. Where solar and wind plants are simpler flexible cookie cutter designs. Which means solar and wind can be built quickly. From a cost perspective building something in 2 years has a lot less overhead than building something over 10 years.
- beerlord 8y agoIt also suggest that coal power will enter a death-spiral, where coal plants will become increasingly expensive to build and maintain due to a lack of scale.
- Gibbon1 8y agoThing that surprised me is from the IEA, coal fired plants aren't cheap to build. What's cheap to build are combined cycle natural gas plants. If you want to know where combined cycle natural gas is going in the future, look at GE's stock price.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoGE laid off 12k people from its power division last year [1] due to lackluster outlook on nat gas generation. Also, GE's stock price is a poor indicator of future outlook of power generation, due to their financials unraveling [2]. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/12/07/ge-job-cuts/929888001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/12/07/ge-job-cuts/... [2] https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=654138984 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...