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Renewables are far cheaper on the margins but not necessarily if you want them to provide all your power needs. Nuclear cost in South Korea, Japan, and India i

Renewables are far cheaper on the margins but not necessarily if you want them to provide all your power needs. Nuclear cost in South Korea, Japan, and India is generally under $3000/kW, according to this peer-reviewed study. See Figure 12: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... Now let's model overall grid costs, here: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ Pick a country and "fetch wind and solar." By default the modeler doesn't include nuclear, so click "show advanced assumption settings." Check "dispatchable technology 2." This defaults to a nuclear cost of $6000/kW. Leave it there or try $3000. It assumes a nuclear plant lifespan of only 25 years; the average plant age in the US is 40 years and expected lifespan for many plants is 60 years, so set it to whatever you think is more realistic. The default also sets the discount rate for nuclear to twice what it has for everything else, so fix that. Run the model. With any reasonable assumptions, many countries end up with at least some nuclear on their grid, and some get their lowest grid cost with all nuclear. The US has some of the best wind and solar resources and relatively high nuclear costs (for now anyway), but the US situation doesn't generalize to the whole world.

pfdietz 4y ago
That's overnight cost, not included in model.energy. You also have to add in the financing cost during construction. If we are talking about Korean export NPPs, the Barakh NPP has four reactors for a total of 24.4B$, producing 5.6GW(e). THis is about $4B/GW. If I plug in 4000 per MW (its euros, not $, but they're not too different right now) for the capital cost of nuclear in model.energy, increase the NPP lifetime to 40 years, and use US 2011 weather data, nuclear optimizes to zero. I'll add that model.energy is looking at the best case for nuclear: providing baseload. Handling variability will incentivize storage, which means renewables will be at an increased advantage. Dispatchable demand of any kind, even slightly dispatchable (allowed to be off 10% of the time, say) also tilts the game toward renewables. The 25 year lifespan for nuclear there may reflect economic obsolescence rather than technical lifespan. Energy technology is evolving quickly now, so investors may simply refuse to credit the promise of such long lifespans. Even in the US, there have been existing NPPs that shut down because they could not recoup their operating costs (granted, much of that was due to gas and also renewable subsidies, but with solar having dropped in cost by nearly an order of magnitude in the last decade it's a bold move to assume it won't keep falling.)
- DennisP 4y ago
  Do the same and use German data, and nuclear optimizes to 100%. The US has especially abundant wind and solar. I would very much like to see a similar model that includes a demand curve. Preferably, customizable demand curves, to allow for modeling of e.g. flatter curves due to electric vehicle charging at night.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Yes, Europe (and particularly eastern Europe) are better places for nuclear, because of higher latitude and (away from coasts) lower winds. This is all just delaying the crossing point though. Nuclear fans are betting nuclear's costs fall while renewables and storage run into brick walls and stop getting cheaper. It's not clear why one should assume this, or why an investor should bet on that outcome. And it is just a financial bet; in the worst case for renewables they just come in a bit more expensive than nuclear, so it's not like the economy explodes.
    - DennisP 4y ago
      Ok, but "I think renewables will get cheaper faster than nuclear" is a very different claim than "renewables are way cheaper than nuclear right now."
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        It's a different claim. It's looking at trends rather than at a specific point. Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production (of the solar hardware). Solar is about 4% of global electricity production now, so scaling it to saturation (just for current electricity demand, which will grow as the world becomes richer and more electrification replaces fossil heat) would drop the cost by another factor of 3.
        MagnumOpus 4y ago
        > Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production This only worked while panels were the lion's share of the cost of a solar installation. These days, costs of real estate, installation and grid connection far exceed the cost of panels -- and those costs go up every year with labour costs rather than coming down.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
model.energy assumes a flat, constant energy demand. Which isn't a ridiculous assumption, given their caveats and default options, unless you're trying to argue for 100% nuclear, in which case it renders any conclusion totally nonsensical.
- DennisP 4y ago
  I would really like to see a model that includes demand curves. Or an academic study that includes nuclear as a possibility, instead of just looking at wind/solar/storage. So far I haven't come across either. (But if we start charging a lot of electric vehicles at night, the demand curves will flatten out anyway.)
trashtester 4y ago
The new Korean plants are designed for a lifespan of 60 years. If governments provide guarantees for the loans, a discount rate of 3% is not unreasonable. Set it like that, and it spits out a price of €32.6/MWh. Now, to make it even more reasonable to emerging economies, assume that through mass production and a relaxation of security requirements to less paranoid levels, the overnight cost can be reduced to €1500, you get $21.3/MWh. This is what the price of electricity SHOULD be, if we want the world to stop depending on hydrocarbons. (Not just a few rich countries.)
- ncmncm 4y ago
  When your argument depends on all existing trends reversing, that tells us all we need to know about your conclusion.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    You seem to ignore the fact that existing trends were artificially manipulated to suppress the nuclear energy use.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      "The fact". I think not.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
        There is an abundance of data, if one is willing to look. Just first links from DDG: "Has Russia Been Financing Western Environmentalism?" (2022) [1] "Putin Is Funding Green Groups to Discredit Natural Gas Fracking" (2017) [2] "German green group branded a Russian ‘puppet’ over Nord Stream II gas pipeline" (2021) [3] [1]: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-environmental-groups https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-envi... [2]: https://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredit-natural-gas-fracking-635052 https://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredi... [3]: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-branded-a-russian-puppet-over-nord-stream-ii-gas-pipeline-nzd9p056q https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-brande...

pfdietz 4y ago

That's overnight cost, not included in model.energy. You also have to add in the financing cost during construction. If we are talking about Korean export NPPs, the Barakh NPP has four reactors for a total of 24.4B$, producing 5.6GW(e). THis is about $4B/GW. If I plug in 4000 per MW (its euros, not $, but they're not too different right now) for the capital cost of nuclear in model.energy, increase the NPP lifetime to 40 years, and use US 2011 weather data, nuclear optimizes to zero. I'll add that model.energy is looking at the best case for nuclear: providing baseload. Handling variability will incentivize storage, which means renewables will be at an increased advantage. Dispatchable demand of any kind, even slightly dispatchable (allowed to be off 10% of the time, say) also tilts the game toward renewables. The 25 year lifespan for nuclear there may reflect economic obsolescence rather than technical lifespan. Energy technology is evolving quickly now, so investors may simply refuse to credit the promise of such long lifespans. Even in the US, there have been existing NPPs that shut down because they could not recoup their operating costs (granted, much of that was due to gas and also renewable subsidies, but with solar having dropped in cost by nearly an order of magnitude in the last decade it's a bold move to assume it won't keep falling.)

DennisP 4y ago
Do the same and use German data, and nuclear optimizes to 100%. The US has especially abundant wind and solar. I would very much like to see a similar model that includes a demand curve. Preferably, customizable demand curves, to allow for modeling of e.g. flatter curves due to electric vehicle charging at night.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Yes, Europe (and particularly eastern Europe) are better places for nuclear, because of higher latitude and (away from coasts) lower winds. This is all just delaying the crossing point though. Nuclear fans are betting nuclear's costs fall while renewables and storage run into brick walls and stop getting cheaper. It's not clear why one should assume this, or why an investor should bet on that outcome. And it is just a financial bet; in the worst case for renewables they just come in a bit more expensive than nuclear, so it's not like the economy explodes.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Ok, but "I think renewables will get cheaper faster than nuclear" is a very different claim than "renewables are way cheaper than nuclear right now."
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      It's a different claim. It's looking at trends rather than at a specific point. Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production (of the solar hardware). Solar is about 4% of global electricity production now, so scaling it to saturation (just for current electricity demand, which will grow as the world becomes richer and more electrification replaces fossil heat) would drop the cost by another factor of 3.
      - MagnumOpus 4y ago
        > Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production This only worked while panels were the lion's share of the cost of a solar installation. These days, costs of real estate, installation and grid connection far exceed the cost of panels -- and those costs go up every year with labour costs rather than coming down.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

model.energy assumes a flat, constant energy demand. Which isn't a ridiculous assumption, given their caveats and default options, unless you're trying to argue for 100% nuclear, in which case it renders any conclusion totally nonsensical.

DennisP 4y ago
I would really like to see a model that includes demand curves. Or an academic study that includes nuclear as a possibility, instead of just looking at wind/solar/storage. So far I haven't come across either. (But if we start charging a lot of electric vehicles at night, the demand curves will flatten out anyway.)

trashtester 4y ago

The new Korean plants are designed for a lifespan of 60 years. If governments provide guarantees for the loans, a discount rate of 3% is not unreasonable. Set it like that, and it spits out a price of €32.6/MWh. Now, to make it even more reasonable to emerging economies, assume that through mass production and a relaxation of security requirements to less paranoid levels, the overnight cost can be reduced to €1500, you get $21.3/MWh. This is what the price of electricity SHOULD be, if we want the world to stop depending on hydrocarbons. (Not just a few rich countries.)

ncmncm 4y ago
When your argument depends on all existing trends reversing, that tells us all we need to know about your conclusion.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  You seem to ignore the fact that existing trends were artificially manipulated to suppress the nuclear energy use.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    "The fact". I think not.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
      There is an abundance of data, if one is willing to look. Just first links from DDG: "Has Russia Been Financing Western Environmentalism?" (2022) [1] "Putin Is Funding Green Groups to Discredit Natural Gas Fracking" (2017) [2] "German green group branded a Russian ‘puppet’ over Nord Stream II gas pipeline" (2021) [3] [1]: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-environmental-groups https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-envi... [2]: https://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredit-natural-gas-fracking-635052 https://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredi... [3]: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-branded-a-russian-puppet-over-nord-stream-ii-gas-pipeline-nzd9p056q https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-brande...