2 ms·
You mean that labour is cheap in China? I've no idea whether it's representative, but I know a construction project where the labour costs were 12% of the fina
by Arnt 5y ago
You mean that labour is cheap in China?
I've no idea whether it's representative, but I know a construction project where the labour costs were 12% of the final bill. That Hinkley Point project mentioned spends about $8m per day, how much does a construction worker cost per day in that area?
- pydry 5y agoFor reference, coire glas pumped storage in the UK is $1.3 billion and 1.5 GW / 30 GWh. More expensive than China, but not wildly so. 5 days' worth of nuclear power plant's output's worth of storage is 384 GWh. Assuming coire glas prices, $1.3 billion*384/30 maxes out at $16.6 billion or roughly half a hinkley. That also gives max output of 19.5GW that is fully dispatchable as compared to 3.2GW which comes out whether you need it or not (& must still be paired with storage/gas to match demand). Lowering the power rating will lower the cost of the pumped storage. Wind energy is currently about 1/3 the price of nuclear, so assuming 5-6 day lulls it still comes out break-even at the very least. Until you consider insuring against $800 billion fukushima style clean up costs. If we properly accounted for the cost incurred by insuring against this risk we'd never build another nuclear plant ever again.