3 ms·

It also depends on how you define "is currently." If you only count the reactors that are already built and still operating, they are pretty cheap sources of e

It also depends on how you define "is currently." If you only count the reactors that are already built and still operating, they are pretty cheap sources of electricity. The old nuclear projects that were abandoned before completion won't be part of your "power per dollar" denominator. The reactors that were shut down 10 years ago because they were too expensive to keep running will also be missing from the denominator. The late and over-budget reactors that have yet to enter service will be missing from the cost denominator as well. Once you limit the field of inquiry to the surviving, operating nuclear plants, they're pretty affordable. If you interpret the question as meaning "nuclear energy is currently the second cheapest per watt [to add to a nation's electricity supply]" -- no, that's incorrect for anywhere with half-decent wind or solar resources. The final question that prevents me from being a 100% renewables triumphalist: what happens to the relative cost of nuclear vs. more renewables + storage as renewable penetration rises? Storage is hardly needed at present penetration levels. Only a modest amount of storage (overnight) may be needed for 50% or even more penetration. But what happens at 80%, 90%, 100% decarbonization of the electricity supply? It's possible that even expensive new reactors will be cheaper than reaching 100% with storage and renewables alone. It remains an open question.

pfdietz 8y ago
To answer your last question: As renewables, getting cheaper, are added and longer term storage becomes needed, nuclear is placed in a horrible position. That's because nuclear needs to sell its power a high percentage of the time or its economics become ridiculously bad. So what happens when solar/wind/short term storage are covering things 80% of the time, at a cost (during that period) the nuclear reactor cannot come close to, on a levelized basis? The cost of power from the nuke goes up by a factor of as much as five. Nuclear plants are horrible as intermittent fill-in sources. It instead becomes more economical to add low-efficiency long term storage options (like hydrogen) and to just overbuild the intermittent sources.
- philipkglass 8y ago
  Yes, nuclear reactors are terrible as peakers. I think that they would make sense mostly to put a floor under worst-case-minimum scenarios for renewable power generation (like "a week-long period of intense winter cold, far from the equator, while wind isn't blowing much.") In that scenario, there would still need to be some long-duration storage system like hydrogen in salt caverns but the storage reserves don't need to be as large as in the 100% renewable scenario. The lower bound on daily generation is higher. Reactors would run at near-constant levels like now, the only difference being that they'd recharge storage systems at low-demand times. Or it could turn out that building very large storage systems, even capacious enough to e.g. ride through Germany's entire winter, is less expensive than building new reactors. I'm just trying to keep an open mind about a future role for new reactors. I'm pretty skeptical about starting new reactor builds right now. My strongest present opinion about power reactors is that it's a shame to close working units while their attached grids are still consuming fossil combustion power.
  - pfdietz 8y ago
    The best case for nuclear in the future will be if new designs can reduce the levelized cost of energy to be more competitive with renewables. This requires new designs -- light water reactors can't do it. It will be a long shot in any case. I am favorable to Moltex's SSR, which uses molten salts but avoids some of the more vexing issues typical MSRs encounter. Small molten salt reactors might also address industrial process heat markets, where they'd have a possible advantage over renewable sources as their heat could be used directly.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      "The best case for nuclear in the future" will be off Earth (I hope). High density portable energy sources are a godsend for solar system colonization. Solar and wind on Mars are much worse energy sources than on Earth, especially if you factor in the cost of transport. For a long time the most powerful system per kg is the one to use.
      - nradov 8y ago
natmaka 8y ago
Decommissioning costs, often neglected, are a ticking bomb. UK discounted provision for decommission costs: £100+ billion in 2013 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/23/britain-nuclear-atomic-clean-up-decommissioning https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/23/britain-... £161 billion in 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170516093449/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy https://web.archive.org/web/20170516093449/https://www.gov.u... £234 billion in 2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision... ... and counting. UK: 15 reactors, ~10300 gross MWe. They analyzed and now think that decommissioning will cost £234 billion (309 billion USD). USA: 98 reactors, 100350 gross MWe. 46 billion USD (Nuclear Waste Fund) are in provision. One order of magnitude more power produced by the stuff to decommission in the US, and nearly 7 times less money to do so. Decommissioning small and old reactors costs more, and entombing may, at least apparently (short-term), reduce the cost. In theory. Let's check a real and ongoing case: Oyster Creek. According to the EIA its construction costs were $488 million (2007 USD) ( https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/state/archive/2010/newjersey/ https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/state/archive/2010/newjersey/ ). As soon as the decommission project started the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it will cost "about $1.4 billion to shut down the plant". Not for an immediate and complete decommission, because the plant will stay in a “safe store” condition until 2075, with dismantling ((...)) set for a period between 2075 and 2078 ( https://www.powermag.com/oldest-u-s-nuclear-plant-shuts-down/ https://www.powermag.com/oldest-u-s-nuclear-plant-shuts-down... ). Then new problems (costs!) may arise. Let's bet that, as usual, the taxpayer will pay. Long-term waste management is another ticking bomb. Moreover if there is a serious glitch (Chernobyl, Fukushima...), are bets are off. You can obtain an insurance policy for anything, AFAIK even for a space trip, but no insurance company covers such nuke risk.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Decommissioning the CO2 in the atmosphere is maybe a bigger ticking time bomb? People are irrationally afraid of human created radioactivity. If they only knew how much they get from bananas, granite counter tops, and airplane trips in comparison to nuclear power and scaled their fear of radiation down to that level, most of these expensive problems would be 100 times cheaper to deal with. How about a massive education campaign about radiation starting in elementary school? Kill the fear. Isn't the whole point of education is that an educated public can make better choices? Let's use that tool.
philwelch 8y ago
It’s also an open question just how many of those costs are real and how many of them are political, regulatory, or otherwise artificial. Maybe nuclear is expensive because we’re making it expensive. A data point in favor of this: Suppose there was a fast developing country that had the resources and requirement to build more power generation capacity than any other society in human history. Suppose, further, that this country was relatively immune to political concerns because it was governed by a technocratic bureaucracy. Just for the hell of it, let’s imagine that most of the techno-bureaucrats have some sort of engineering background. It so turns out that there is a country exactly like this, and their long term energy policy is to build a massive hydroelectric dam on the one place in their country that is particularly well-suited for it, and then build lots and lots and lots of fission plants and invest in fusion research.

pfdietz 8y ago

To answer your last question: As renewables, getting cheaper, are added and longer term storage becomes needed, nuclear is placed in a horrible position. That's because nuclear needs to sell its power a high percentage of the time or its economics become ridiculously bad. So what happens when solar/wind/short term storage are covering things 80% of the time, at a cost (during that period) the nuclear reactor cannot come close to, on a levelized basis? The cost of power from the nuke goes up by a factor of as much as five. Nuclear plants are horrible as intermittent fill-in sources. It instead becomes more economical to add low-efficiency long term storage options (like hydrogen) and to just overbuild the intermittent sources.

philipkglass 8y ago
Yes, nuclear reactors are terrible as peakers. I think that they would make sense mostly to put a floor under worst-case-minimum scenarios for renewable power generation (like "a week-long period of intense winter cold, far from the equator, while wind isn't blowing much.") In that scenario, there would still need to be some long-duration storage system like hydrogen in salt caverns but the storage reserves don't need to be as large as in the 100% renewable scenario. The lower bound on daily generation is higher. Reactors would run at near-constant levels like now, the only difference being that they'd recharge storage systems at low-demand times. Or it could turn out that building very large storage systems, even capacious enough to e.g. ride through Germany's entire winter, is less expensive than building new reactors. I'm just trying to keep an open mind about a future role for new reactors. I'm pretty skeptical about starting new reactor builds right now. My strongest present opinion about power reactors is that it's a shame to close working units while their attached grids are still consuming fossil combustion power.
- pfdietz 8y ago
  The best case for nuclear in the future will be if new designs can reduce the levelized cost of energy to be more competitive with renewables. This requires new designs -- light water reactors can't do it. It will be a long shot in any case. I am favorable to Moltex's SSR, which uses molten salts but avoids some of the more vexing issues typical MSRs encounter. Small molten salt reactors might also address industrial process heat markets, where they'd have a possible advantage over renewable sources as their heat could be used directly.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    "The best case for nuclear in the future" will be off Earth (I hope). High density portable energy sources are a godsend for solar system colonization. Solar and wind on Mars are much worse energy sources than on Earth, especially if you factor in the cost of transport. For a long time the most powerful system per kg is the one to use.
    - nradov 8y ago

natmaka 8y ago

Decommissioning costs, often neglected, are a ticking bomb. UK discounted provision for decommission costs: £100+ billion in 2013 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/23/britain-nuclear-atomic-clean-up-decommissioning https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/23/britain-... £161 billion in 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170516093449/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy https://web.archive.org/web/20170516093449/https://www.gov.u... £234 billion in 2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision... ... and counting. UK: 15 reactors, ~10300 gross MWe. They analyzed and now think that decommissioning will cost £234 billion (309 billion USD). USA: 98 reactors, 100350 gross MWe. 46 billion USD (Nuclear Waste Fund) are in provision. One order of magnitude more power produced by the stuff to decommission in the US, and nearly 7 times less money to do so. Decommissioning small and old reactors costs more, and entombing may, at least apparently (short-term), reduce the cost. In theory. Let's check a real and ongoing case: Oyster Creek. According to the EIA its construction costs were $488 million (2007 USD) ( https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/state/archive/2010/newjersey/ https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/state/archive/2010/newjersey/ ). As soon as the decommission project started the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it will cost "about $1.4 billion to shut down the plant". Not for an immediate and complete decommission, because the plant will stay in a “safe store” condition until 2075, with dismantling ((...)) set for a period between 2075 and 2078 ( https://www.powermag.com/oldest-u-s-nuclear-plant-shuts-down/ https://www.powermag.com/oldest-u-s-nuclear-plant-shuts-down... ). Then new problems (costs!) may arise. Let's bet that, as usual, the taxpayer will pay. Long-term waste management is another ticking bomb. Moreover if there is a serious glitch (Chernobyl, Fukushima...), are bets are off. You can obtain an insurance policy for anything, AFAIK even for a space trip, but no insurance company covers such nuke risk.

njarboe 8y ago
Decommissioning the CO2 in the atmosphere is maybe a bigger ticking time bomb? People are irrationally afraid of human created radioactivity. If they only knew how much they get from bananas, granite counter tops, and airplane trips in comparison to nuclear power and scaled their fear of radiation down to that level, most of these expensive problems would be 100 times cheaper to deal with. How about a massive education campaign about radiation starting in elementary school? Kill the fear. Isn't the whole point of education is that an educated public can make better choices? Let's use that tool.

philwelch 8y ago

It’s also an open question just how many of those costs are real and how many of them are political, regulatory, or otherwise artificial. Maybe nuclear is expensive because we’re making it expensive. A data point in favor of this: Suppose there was a fast developing country that had the resources and requirement to build more power generation capacity than any other society in human history. Suppose, further, that this country was relatively immune to political concerns because it was governed by a technocratic bureaucracy. Just for the hell of it, let’s imagine that most of the techno-bureaucrats have some sort of engineering background. It so turns out that there is a country exactly like this, and their long term energy policy is to build a massive hydroelectric dam on the one place in their country that is particularly well-suited for it, and then build lots and lots and lots of fission plants and invest in fusion research.