5 ms·

Not OP, but you're wrong about cost. Nuclear is more than twice as expensive as photovoltaics [1], so it's not cheap at all. And that doesn't include dealing wi

by driest 5y ago

Not OP, but you're wrong about cost. Nuclear is more than twice as expensive as photovoltaics [1], so it's not cheap at all. And that doesn't include dealing with risks like proliferation and extremely hazardous waste for hundreds of years. the half trillion comment came from the original article, that stated an estimated cost of 440 billion. [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

zdragnar 5y ago
Reading that link, levelized solar plus battery storage is twice the cost of nuclear. It is cheap to generate the electricity, but only when backed by natural gas or hydro.
- driest 5y ago
  yes, solar and wind energy generation is intermittent, that's no surprise to anyone. but it is much much cheaper than nuclear energy.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    This misses the point. You cannot compare solar and nuclear directly, because they serve different needs. Without battery or natural gas, solar and wind are not useful. You have to have some sort of backup, sufficient to avoid brownouts or blackouts, and so you end up with the full capitalization and maintenance cost of not-solar anyway. To properly compare solar with nuclear, you must add on the cost of battery and / or natural gas (or equivalent fast backup), at which point nuclear is cheaper.
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      Here's solar+battery for $40/MWh. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-than-24gwh-of-batteries-included-in-its-us-solar-plus-storage-pipeline/ https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-... That's at least half the cost of nuclear, maybe as much as a fifth.
spullara 5y ago
Well, nuclear is twice as expensive in the US. China's economics might be a lot different.
- rdevsrex 5y ago
  For one thing, they can strong arm suppliers to give them the best price. On the other hand, regional corruption might also raise the price up.
- driest 5y ago
  China's economics on solar might also be a lot different, but given that it doesn't publish these numbers all we have to reason about are the US and maybe Europe. Btw, ask France about cost of nuclear, I've heard their new reactors are absolutely in time and budget ;)
flavius29663 5y ago
your link does not include nuclear, it only includes an elusive "advanced nuclear". This is not for China, which I have the feeling has a different take on "advanced". In the US, existing plants have much lower costs, around the same as cheap coal and gas. PV capacity costs about 1 dollars per Watt and achieves a 20-25% capacity factor. In the article they say less than 0.5 dollars per watt of nuclear. If they can achieve that, it's obviously cheaper to go nuclear than PV. Nuclear has higher operating costs, true, but also a 90% capacity factor, meaning you need 5 times less capacity installed than PV. 1200 GW of nuclear for 440 billions is the equivalent of 5000GW of PV for 5000 billions. This is just to produce the same amount of energy, at any time during the day/year, before considering the cost of storage or intermittent power on the grid. I truly hope China can pull this off at the advertised price. Because of the sheer size of the initiative they might be able to just do it using the economy of scale. France did it in 10 years in the 70s-80s, no reason China can't do it today. We need all the energy sources, being PV+wind+battery purists won't be enough. I found this article with a more global take https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec... Apparently France managed to build it's nuclear plants at a cost of 1 dollar per Watt. Going to 0.5 dollars today might be a challenge for China, even with economies of scale. The article estimated 2.5 per Watt. Even at 2.5 USD per Watt installed, that would still be about the same price as PV installed. But you gain stability in the grid for a slighter higher operating cost.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  That PV cost of $1/watt is the levelized cost. In other words, it already includes the cost of batteries and the capacity factor adjustment. So 1200GW of nuclear for $440B with a capacity factor of 0.9 is equivalent to 1080GW of levelized solar at $1T. But solar+batteries is halving in cost every 4 years or so, whereas economies of scale / learning effect doesn't appear to apply to nuclear, or at least it didn't for the French. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...)
  - flavius29663 5y ago

by driest 5y ago

zdragnar 5y ago

Reading that link, levelized solar plus battery storage is twice the cost of nuclear. It is cheap to generate the electricity, but only when backed by natural gas or hydro.

driest 5y ago
yes, solar and wind energy generation is intermittent, that's no surprise to anyone. but it is much much cheaper than nuclear energy.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  This misses the point. You cannot compare solar and nuclear directly, because they serve different needs. Without battery or natural gas, solar and wind are not useful. You have to have some sort of backup, sufficient to avoid brownouts or blackouts, and so you end up with the full capitalization and maintenance cost of not-solar anyway. To properly compare solar with nuclear, you must add on the cost of battery and / or natural gas (or equivalent fast backup), at which point nuclear is cheaper.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Here's solar+battery for $40/MWh. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-than-24gwh-of-batteries-included-in-its-us-solar-plus-storage-pipeline/ https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-... That's at least half the cost of nuclear, maybe as much as a fifth.

spullara 5y ago

Well, nuclear is twice as expensive in the US. China's economics might be a lot different.

rdevsrex 5y ago
For one thing, they can strong arm suppliers to give them the best price. On the other hand, regional corruption might also raise the price up.
driest 5y ago
China's economics on solar might also be a lot different, but given that it doesn't publish these numbers all we have to reason about are the US and maybe Europe. Btw, ask France about cost of nuclear, I've heard their new reactors are absolutely in time and budget ;)

flavius29663 5y ago

your link does not include nuclear, it only includes an elusive "advanced nuclear". This is not for China, which I have the feeling has a different take on "advanced". In the US, existing plants have much lower costs, around the same as cheap coal and gas. PV capacity costs about 1 dollars per Watt and achieves a 20-25% capacity factor. In the article they say less than 0.5 dollars per watt of nuclear. If they can achieve that, it's obviously cheaper to go nuclear than PV. Nuclear has higher operating costs, true, but also a 90% capacity factor, meaning you need 5 times less capacity installed than PV. 1200 GW of nuclear for 440 billions is the equivalent of 5000GW of PV for 5000 billions. This is just to produce the same amount of energy, at any time during the day/year, before considering the cost of storage or intermittent power on the grid. I truly hope China can pull this off at the advertised price. Because of the sheer size of the initiative they might be able to just do it using the economy of scale. France did it in 10 years in the 70s-80s, no reason China can't do it today. We need all the energy sources, being PV+wind+battery purists won't be enough. I found this article with a more global take https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec... Apparently France managed to build it's nuclear plants at a cost of 1 dollar per Watt. Going to 0.5 dollars today might be a challenge for China, even with economies of scale. The article estimated 2.5 per Watt. Even at 2.5 USD per Watt installed, that would still be about the same price as PV installed. But you gain stability in the grid for a slighter higher operating cost.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
That PV cost of $1/watt is the levelized cost. In other words, it already includes the cost of batteries and the capacity factor adjustment. So 1200GW of nuclear for $440B with a capacity factor of 0.9 is equivalent to 1080GW of levelized solar at $1T. But solar+batteries is halving in cost every 4 years or so, whereas economies of scale / learning effect doesn't appear to apply to nuclear, or at least it didn't for the French. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...)
- flavius29663 5y ago