4 ms·

By comparison, a plant of the same design as the Vogtle plant was built in China at a cost of $7.3B, yielding a cost of $3.17 per watt of output [1] - under 1/3

By comparison, a plant of the same design as the Vogtle plant was built in China at a cost of $7.3B, yielding a cost of $3.17 per watt of output [1] - under 1/3rd of the solar cost with the required overproduction. The Vogtle plant is the first of its kind in the United States. First of a kind plants typically cost about twice as much as subsequent designs. Furthermore, you're not including the cost of storage for your estimates on solar and wind. Even 12 hours of storage represents a staggering amount of storage - that's 5.75 TWh given the US's average daily 11.5 TWh consumption. Costs per KWh are still on the order of hundreds of dollars per KWh. At $200/KWh 5.75 TWh works out to over a trillion dollars. And this is a recurring cost, as storage needs to be replaced. Hydroelectric storage is cheaper and doesn't need to be replaced, but is geographically limited. Even then, it's not that much cheaper at $100-160/KWh [2] Yes, renewables work if energy storage becomes effectively free. But energy storage is anything but free. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station 2. https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/08/08/report-covers-costs-of-various-storage-technologies-including-pumped-storage-hydro/#:~:text=Pumped%20storage%20hydropower%20and%20compressed,and%20construction%20and%20commissioning%20costs https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/08/08/report-cover....

philipkglass 6y ago
The paper you cited shows that 1.5x overproduction can get the US to 75% of electricity from solar and wind without building any storage. Every big construction project is cheaper in China than in the US. China can build a solar farm for $0.83/watt [1], half the cost I cited up-thread for an American solar farm. But I don't think that $0.83/watt is a credible construction cost for a solar farm in the US in 2020. Nor is $3.17/watt a credible cost for constructing a nuclear plant in the US in 2020. I am weary of hearing about how the next reactor design is going to be affordable and take only 5 years to build. That's what I heard from Westinghouse and Areva/EDF when the AP1000 and EPR were still theoretical reactors. I believed it for a while. I don't believe it any more in 2020. I don't believe it about molten salt reactors, traveling wave reactors, or whatever theoretical reactor is currently cherished by Ted Talkers. I'm willing to start believing it again after a reactor design has entered commercial operation in the United States or European Union and lived up to its claims. I don't want to write off nuclear power entirely. It's much safer than fossil power, both in terms of acute human health risks and climate risks. I still couldn't advise any American utility that new nuclear plants are a fiscally prudent part of decarbonization planning for the next decade. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-26/china-s-biggest-subsidy-free-solar-farm-powers-up-in-liaoning https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-26/china-s-b...
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  > The paper you cited shows that 1.5x overproduction can get the US to 75% of electricity from solar and wind without building any storage. Right, without storage you have to scale back the percentage of electricity you get from intermittent sources. Like I said, without storage, renewables do not present a valid option for a carbon free source of energy. I you want a US example of a nuclear plant construction, you can take the Diablo Canyon plant [1]. This is not only built in the US recently, but also in an earthquake prone area and thus needed more robust construction. It cost 13.8 billion in 2018 dollars. Plants constructed earlier are even more cost effective, even when adjusted for inflation. The Donald Cook plant [2] produces about as much as the AP1000 plant, for only 3.35 billion 2007 dollars. That's about 4.25 billion in 2020 dollars. And this isn't an anomaly. Plenty of plants built during the 70s were similarly cost effective [3] [4] You're picking an individual plant to inflate the cost of nuclear dramatically. You're absolutely right that the next reactor design isn't going to be affordable. First of a kind production is always the most expensive. Nuclear power gets cheaper with repeated constructions of the same design. You don't need to re-build the manufacturing pipeline to make components, staff become experienced in construction, and other benefits. This is why France's nuclear program was one of the most successful. They standardized on 3 designs, and built serial production of those same 3 designs. The APR is expensive precisely because it's one of the first large plants that France has built in decades, and they don't have that advantage of serial production. This is also why nuclear plants built during the 1970s in the US are much more cost effective than the ones built today. The US was building a lot of nuclear plants, and so it benefited from this economy of scale. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Plant 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Stati... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_S...
  - philipkglass 6y ago
    75% of all electricity consumption is too low to be a "valid option" for decarbonizing electricity? We have different ideas of what's valid. If you want a US example of a nuclear plant construction, you can take the Diablo Canyon plant [1]. This is not only built in the US recently, but also in an earthquake prone area and thus needed more robust construction. It cost 13.8 billion in 2018 dollars. ... You're picking an individual plant to inflate the cost of nuclear dramatically. Diablo Canyon unit 1 construction began in 1968 and unit 2 in 1970 according to the page you linked. That's hardly recent. I was actually trying to be charitable to American nuclear by talking about the new Vogtle units without mentioning the billions spent at V.C. Summer on two incomplete AP1000 reactors that will not enter service at all. I agree that 1970s era nuclear plants cost less. Part of that was that there was more experience with building them, so the average was lower. Another reason is that when we look at nuclear plants running today and tabulate cost by year of construction, we're cherry picking the projects that went well. I count 41 American reactors that were cancelled while under construction on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reactors_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reac... 37 of them started construction in the 1970s. That's a high project failure rate compared to any other generation source.

philipkglass 6y ago

The paper you cited shows that 1.5x overproduction can get the US to 75% of electricity from solar and wind without building any storage. Every big construction project is cheaper in China than in the US. China can build a solar farm for $0.83/watt [1], half the cost I cited up-thread for an American solar farm. But I don't think that $0.83/watt is a credible construction cost for a solar farm in the US in 2020. Nor is $3.17/watt a credible cost for constructing a nuclear plant in the US in 2020. I am weary of hearing about how the next reactor design is going to be affordable and take only 5 years to build. That's what I heard from Westinghouse and Areva/EDF when the AP1000 and EPR were still theoretical reactors. I believed it for a while. I don't believe it any more in 2020. I don't believe it about molten salt reactors, traveling wave reactors, or whatever theoretical reactor is currently cherished by Ted Talkers. I'm willing to start believing it again after a reactor design has entered commercial operation in the United States or European Union and lived up to its claims. I don't want to write off nuclear power entirely. It's much safer than fossil power, both in terms of acute human health risks and climate risks. I still couldn't advise any American utility that new nuclear plants are a fiscally prudent part of decarbonization planning for the next decade. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-26/china-s-biggest-subsidy-free-solar-farm-powers-up-in-liaoning https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-26/china-s-b...

Manfredo_1 6y ago
> The paper you cited shows that 1.5x overproduction can get the US to 75% of electricity from solar and wind without building any storage. Right, without storage you have to scale back the percentage of electricity you get from intermittent sources. Like I said, without storage, renewables do not present a valid option for a carbon free source of energy. I you want a US example of a nuclear plant construction, you can take the Diablo Canyon plant [1]. This is not only built in the US recently, but also in an earthquake prone area and thus needed more robust construction. It cost 13.8 billion in 2018 dollars. Plants constructed earlier are even more cost effective, even when adjusted for inflation. The Donald Cook plant [2] produces about as much as the AP1000 plant, for only 3.35 billion 2007 dollars. That's about 4.25 billion in 2020 dollars. And this isn't an anomaly. Plenty of plants built during the 70s were similarly cost effective [3] [4] You're picking an individual plant to inflate the cost of nuclear dramatically. You're absolutely right that the next reactor design isn't going to be affordable. First of a kind production is always the most expensive. Nuclear power gets cheaper with repeated constructions of the same design. You don't need to re-build the manufacturing pipeline to make components, staff become experienced in construction, and other benefits. This is why France's nuclear program was one of the most successful. They standardized on 3 designs, and built serial production of those same 3 designs. The APR is expensive precisely because it's one of the first large plants that France has built in decades, and they don't have that advantage of serial production. This is also why nuclear plants built during the 1970s in the US are much more cost effective than the ones built today. The US was building a lot of nuclear plants, and so it benefited from this economy of scale. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Plant 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Stati... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_S...
- philipkglass 6y ago
  75% of all electricity consumption is too low to be a "valid option" for decarbonizing electricity? We have different ideas of what's valid. If you want a US example of a nuclear plant construction, you can take the Diablo Canyon plant [1]. This is not only built in the US recently, but also in an earthquake prone area and thus needed more robust construction. It cost 13.8 billion in 2018 dollars. ... You're picking an individual plant to inflate the cost of nuclear dramatically. Diablo Canyon unit 1 construction began in 1968 and unit 2 in 1970 according to the page you linked. That's hardly recent. I was actually trying to be charitable to American nuclear by talking about the new Vogtle units without mentioning the billions spent at V.C. Summer on two incomplete AP1000 reactors that will not enter service at all. I agree that 1970s era nuclear plants cost less. Part of that was that there was more experience with building them, so the average was lower. Another reason is that when we look at nuclear plants running today and tabulate cost by year of construction, we're cherry picking the projects that went well. I count 41 American reactors that were cancelled while under construction on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reactors_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reac... 37 of them started construction in the 1970s. That's a high project failure rate compared to any other generation source.