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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 "adv

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
  You're confusing Watts, which is power, with levelised cost, which is price of energy over the lifetime of the plant. It costs 1 dollar to install 1 W of solar PV with no batteries. To include a 2-4 hour battery it's double that. Long term storage for day to day or seasonal is much much more, and likely impossible to do with the current tech. And in regards to France, compare France's electricity cost with Germany's, Nuclear clearly beats PV and wind on cost. People will say that wholesale prices are the same, and Germany pays such a huge price solely because of taxes. But the point is...those taxes are so high in order to support renewables subsidies. This being China, all comparisons are moot. They can reduce costs significantly, like they showed with the PV modules. They are the ones that truly commoditized the modules.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    It costs $20 to install 1 MWh of solar PV[1]. That's 18 cents per watt averaged over the 8760 hours per year. And since the sun doesn't shine at night, that's 18 cents for at least 2 watts, probably 3-5. It costs $40/MWh to install solar with batteries[2]. That's 35 cents per watt. 1: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/888004cf-1a38-4716-9e0c-3b0e3fdbf609/WorldEnergyOutlook2021.pdf https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/888004cf-1a38-4716-... 2: 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-...
    - flavius29663 5y ago
      Again, you're confusing MWh with MW. MWh is not something you can install, it's something you produce over time. Also, I don't know how but you end up with the ridiculous number of 18 cents per 2 Watts? That is crazy, the module alone is 20 cents per Watt. I think you should understand first what MW and MWh mean. One costs 1 million dollars to install, and then will proceed to produce 8000 hours per year divided by the capacity factor. So about 2000 hours * 1 MW = 2000 MWh per year. At a price of 5 cents per KWh, you can sell that for 100k dollars.

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
You're confusing Watts, which is power, with levelised cost, which is price of energy over the lifetime of the plant. It costs 1 dollar to install 1 W of solar PV with no batteries. To include a 2-4 hour battery it's double that. Long term storage for day to day or seasonal is much much more, and likely impossible to do with the current tech. And in regards to France, compare France's electricity cost with Germany's, Nuclear clearly beats PV and wind on cost. People will say that wholesale prices are the same, and Germany pays such a huge price solely because of taxes. But the point is...those taxes are so high in order to support renewables subsidies. This being China, all comparisons are moot. They can reduce costs significantly, like they showed with the PV modules. They are the ones that truly commoditized the modules.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  It costs $20 to install 1 MWh of solar PV[1]. That's 18 cents per watt averaged over the 8760 hours per year. And since the sun doesn't shine at night, that's 18 cents for at least 2 watts, probably 3-5. It costs $40/MWh to install solar with batteries[2]. That's 35 cents per watt. 1: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/888004cf-1a38-4716-9e0c-3b0e3fdbf609/WorldEnergyOutlook2021.pdf https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/888004cf-1a38-4716-... 2: 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-...
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    Again, you're confusing MWh with MW. MWh is not something you can install, it's something you produce over time. Also, I don't know how but you end up with the ridiculous number of 18 cents per 2 Watts? That is crazy, the module alone is 20 cents per Watt. I think you should understand first what MW and MWh mean. One costs 1 million dollars to install, and then will proceed to produce 8000 hours per year divided by the capacity factor. So about 2000 hours * 1 MW = 2000 MWh per year. At a price of 5 cents per KWh, you can sell that for 100k dollars.