3 ms·

I would say the main arguments against nuclear are political; the waste storage problem and a fear for accidents. There can also be laws against building new nu

I would say the main arguments against nuclear are political; the waste storage problem and a fear for accidents. There can also be laws against building new nuclear plants or taxes that disproportionally disadvantage nuclear. The huge capital costs don't speak in favor of nuclear either, but I do wonder how the other aspects affect even considering to build new plants. I don't really follow your opportunity cost argument. Do you mean the price of 1 plant equals the price of 10GW renewables? Are you taking into account the fact that you have to replace the renewables after about 20 years while you can run a new plant for about 60 years?

Retric 4y ago
After selling electricity from a solar power plant you should have enough money to build it’s replacement in less than 20 years. Both Nuclear and Solar get subsidies, but grid Solar generally doesn’t need them.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  I was wondering if that was part of the calculations or not. It's capital that needs to be accounted for if you want to compare energy sources. The existence of subsidies shouldn't really matter, the end consumer pays for them some way or another and you factor this into the total capital cost.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
At $0.8/gross watt and 25% capacity, solar breaks even at around 20 years at 2c/kWh. At 3c/kWh you can also cover interest and upkeep and make a net profit. Prices are falling double digit percentages every year. The story is similar for wind, although prices are no longer falling rapidly. 2-3c/kWh for nuclear takes care of your variable costs of operation. You will never pay back the building costs at 3-4c/kWh. The financial payback time for renewables is shorter than the build time for the nuclear plant, whereas the nuclear plant will need subsidy to stay on after 20 years or so. Ie. if I have $10 billion right now, I can spend it on nuclear. In 15-20 years I will have ~0.8-1GW of net capacity that will begin to produce energy at a marginal cost of 3 to 4 cents per kWh and nothing in the bank. Or I can spend it on ~4GW net of solar. In 20 years I will have my original money back, a modest profit, and a mostly worn out system that will conservatively produce ~1-2GW net at a marginal cost of around 1c/kWh for another ten years. Additionally industry trends imply that half of my money will buy me 6-8GW net of capacity in the same space if I simply replace the panels with 30-40% efficient ones (as over half of the current costs are land, permiting, and frame). The outlook is not quite so compelling for wind, or high latitudes, but it still blows nuclear out of the water. The story also looks a little better for nuclear if you're anticipating green hydrogen or ammonia costs to be prohibitively high or you decide to bulldoze the fossil fuel plants rather than using them as part of a chemical storage system. Additionally if you are anticipating energy growth nuclear looks good in the short term (but after 60 years we're basically back at square one arguing about thermal pollution rather than CO2)
- cinntaile 4y ago
  That's the LCOE perspective, but the costs for the end consumer include ancillary functions that the TSOs have to procure or build out themselves. So far I have not seen an electricity grid with a high penetration of renewables that has resulted in lower total costs, which isn't that weird considering the price for a highly distributed grid is complexity. Thermal pollution doesn't have to exist for newer plants, you can use the waste heat for district heating. If we assume there are no political forces that try to stop this (big if), then it becomes a purely economical calculation to see if it makes sense. In another comment you mentioned 40% capacity factor in a system with equal parts wind and solar. This seems a little high right now. The best performing offshore parks are around 55-60%, but it's usually lower. For onshore it's 25-35% and offshore is 35-50%.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Have you got any solid info on current and projected total system costs? I can only find repetitions of a single UK somewhat optimistic study citing 10-14gbp (and limited in scope to 30% renewable mix) or vague fear mongering from fossil fuel interests.
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      As you probably know, it's messy and not entirely straightforward to get any decent numbers on the whole picture. Which is my roundabout way of saying that my sources could be better, but I do believe it helps paint a picture. Total system costs will increase because of stabilization measures that need to be taken now that we're moving towards a grid with a lot of variability, this includes but is not limited to various types of storage and frequency stabilization. The increased transmission capacity between countries and an increased number of transmission cables to connect all the remote wind turbine parks to the grid will also add to the costs. [0] looks at Germany specifically, the report was put out by VDE which is a large technical branch organization [1]. Check out the slide on page 17 [2], it has projected wholesale costs for 2030. The median price isn't going down and the span is getting much bigger than during previous time periods. This doesn't show the total system costs, but we would clearly be in a grid with a high variability and this would result in cost increases as mentioned. This can be seen in [4], on page 16 they specifically mention "The rapid increase in investments in electricity distribution networks could moreover be correlated to the increase of the share of distributed electricity generation (especially from renewable energy sources) in the period and electrification in general." And yes, I know that correlation is not causation. There is also this report [3] that does look at the total picture. The conclusion there is that it is better to have a mix than 100% renewables basically. [0] https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-electricity-grid-upgrade-will-be-expensive-experts-warn/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-ele... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDE_e.V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDE_e.V. [2] https://www.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/03082019%20CEPS_Rabago_Energy%20prices%20and%20costs%20in%20Europe.pdf https://www.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/03082019%20CE... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918312790 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... [4] https://trinomics.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Final-Report-Network-Costs.pdf https://trinomics.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Final-Report...

Retric 4y ago

After selling electricity from a solar power plant you should have enough money to build it’s replacement in less than 20 years. Both Nuclear and Solar get subsidies, but grid Solar generally doesn’t need them.

cinntaile 4y ago
I was wondering if that was part of the calculations or not. It's capital that needs to be accounted for if you want to compare energy sources. The existence of subsidies shouldn't really matter, the end consumer pays for them some way or another and you factor this into the total capital cost.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

At $0.8/gross watt and 25% capacity, solar breaks even at around 20 years at 2c/kWh. At 3c/kWh you can also cover interest and upkeep and make a net profit. Prices are falling double digit percentages every year. The story is similar for wind, although prices are no longer falling rapidly. 2-3c/kWh for nuclear takes care of your variable costs of operation. You will never pay back the building costs at 3-4c/kWh. The financial payback time for renewables is shorter than the build time for the nuclear plant, whereas the nuclear plant will need subsidy to stay on after 20 years or so. Ie. if I have $10 billion right now, I can spend it on nuclear. In 15-20 years I will have ~0.8-1GW of net capacity that will begin to produce energy at a marginal cost of 3 to 4 cents per kWh and nothing in the bank. Or I can spend it on ~4GW net of solar. In 20 years I will have my original money back, a modest profit, and a mostly worn out system that will conservatively produce ~1-2GW net at a marginal cost of around 1c/kWh for another ten years. Additionally industry trends imply that half of my money will buy me 6-8GW net of capacity in the same space if I simply replace the panels with 30-40% efficient ones (as over half of the current costs are land, permiting, and frame). The outlook is not quite so compelling for wind, or high latitudes, but it still blows nuclear out of the water. The story also looks a little better for nuclear if you're anticipating green hydrogen or ammonia costs to be prohibitively high or you decide to bulldoze the fossil fuel plants rather than using them as part of a chemical storage system. Additionally if you are anticipating energy growth nuclear looks good in the short term (but after 60 years we're basically back at square one arguing about thermal pollution rather than CO2)

cinntaile 4y ago
That's the LCOE perspective, but the costs for the end consumer include ancillary functions that the TSOs have to procure or build out themselves. So far I have not seen an electricity grid with a high penetration of renewables that has resulted in lower total costs, which isn't that weird considering the price for a highly distributed grid is complexity. Thermal pollution doesn't have to exist for newer plants, you can use the waste heat for district heating. If we assume there are no political forces that try to stop this (big if), then it becomes a purely economical calculation to see if it makes sense. In another comment you mentioned 40% capacity factor in a system with equal parts wind and solar. This seems a little high right now. The best performing offshore parks are around 55-60%, but it's usually lower. For onshore it's 25-35% and offshore is 35-50%.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Have you got any solid info on current and projected total system costs? I can only find repetitions of a single UK somewhat optimistic study citing 10-14gbp (and limited in scope to 30% renewable mix) or vague fear mongering from fossil fuel interests.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    As you probably know, it's messy and not entirely straightforward to get any decent numbers on the whole picture. Which is my roundabout way of saying that my sources could be better, but I do believe it helps paint a picture. Total system costs will increase because of stabilization measures that need to be taken now that we're moving towards a grid with a lot of variability, this includes but is not limited to various types of storage and frequency stabilization. The increased transmission capacity between countries and an increased number of transmission cables to connect all the remote wind turbine parks to the grid will also add to the costs. [0] looks at Germany specifically, the report was put out by VDE which is a large technical branch organization [1]. Check out the slide on page 17 [2], it has projected wholesale costs for 2030. The median price isn't going down and the span is getting much bigger than during previous time periods. This doesn't show the total system costs, but we would clearly be in a grid with a high variability and this would result in cost increases as mentioned. This can be seen in [4], on page 16 they specifically mention "The rapid increase in investments in electricity distribution networks could moreover be correlated to the increase of the share of distributed electricity generation (especially from renewable energy sources) in the period and electrification in general." And yes, I know that correlation is not causation. There is also this report [3] that does look at the total picture. The conclusion there is that it is better to have a mix than 100% renewables basically. [0] https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-electricity-grid-upgrade-will-be-expensive-experts-warn/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-ele... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDE_e.V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDE_e.V. [2] https://www.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/03082019%20CEPS_Rabago_Energy%20prices%20and%20costs%20in%20Europe.pdf https://www.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/03082019%20CE... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918312790 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... [4] https://trinomics.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Final-Report-Network-Costs.pdf https://trinomics.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Final-Report...