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Because nuclear can't keep up on cost. Right now, new wind, PV solar, and gas all cost about half as much per kwh as nuclear. We actually have numerous nuclear
by beat 7y ago
Because nuclear can't keep up on cost. Right now, new wind, PV solar, and gas all cost about half as much per kwh as nuclear. We actually have numerous nuclear plants being decommissioned early in the US, because they've lost industrial-scale customers to cheaper new sources, and since their operational cost doesn't reduce with output, it can cost more to keep the plant running than to just shut it down.
A lot of pro-nuclear activists respond with "Yeah, but" and bring up theoretical thorium designs and such that are not actually in production operation anywhere. But until they are in production, they are not actual competition for the gas/wind/solar systems that are commercially available, at scale, right now. But traditional light water reactors? They're a technological dead end. The cost doesn't work.
- enqk 7y agoWhen you're saying nuclear can't keep up with the cost, are you comparing the same kwh? For wind and solar if you install X kwh for amount A, and for nuclear Y khw for amount B, X represents a peak available capacity.. At best, what is the guaranteed available khw you get for this installed base? 0.10 * X? For nuclear the available capacity is much closer to Y. So if the available capacity from wind/solar was something like 0.10 X, then it means you'll have to install 10x more wind and solar than you would need nuclear. Which needs more material and more energy expenditure (more CO2?) to install. If you compare cost, similarly, A would have to be 10x smaller than B to make wind/solar be cheaper. Some other issues is how Solar competes in terms of surface with areas that you'd grow food in (unless you build in the desert, but then you have issues such as dust on the panels, and the need to carry the energy across large land)