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Renewables will replace the most expensive fossil plants before the cheaper ones, which will make the base load price to compete with pretty hard for nuclear to
by i_am_proteus 8y ago
Renewables will replace the most expensive fossil plants before the cheaper ones, which will make the base load price to compete with pretty hard for nuclear to match.
- adrianN 8y agoRight now it looks like the opposite is true. Due to a lack of storage we need more expensive gas plants instead of cheap coal plants that can't follow demand as quickly.
- philipkglass 8y agoOvernight capital costs are significantly lower for new gas plants than new coal plants. Real capital costs are lower yet since gas plants are faster to complete. Fixed O&M costs are also lower for gas. The shale revolution made fuel for them cheap too. There's no combination of circumstances that presently makes a new coal plant cost-competitive with a new gas plant in the continental US. See table 1 here: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost... The renewable costs are already badly outdated but AFAICT the relative prices of coal and gas plants are still about right.