3 ms·

https://renewablesnow.com/news/portugal-reaches-record-low-price-in-solar-tender-awarding-670-mw-711343/ https://renewablesnow.com/news/portugal-reaches-record-

https://renewablesnow.com/news/portugal-reaches-record-low-price-in-solar-tender-awarding-670-mw-711343/ https://renewablesnow.com/news/portugal-reaches-record-low-p... Show me the $13/MWh nuclear reactor (or even fuel for that matter). Granted that's variable wholesale, and a full 100% renewable system costs $50-100/MWh in countries with high labour cost and without optimal climate, but this is still vastly cheaper than nuclear.

Manuel_D 4y ago
That was an exceptionally low price, as per the article the other end was $.40 per MWh (actually Euro, but they're trading at better than 1:1 right now). Furthermore, this was excluding storage which more than triples the total price. Solar is indeed better than nuclear if your goal is to reduce the amount of fossil fuel use by shutting coal and gas plants down during sunny days. But if the goal is a total elimination of fossil fuel use, then the cost of storage has to be included and nuclear wins out.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > That was an exceptionally low price, as per the article the other end was $.40 per MWh (actually Euro, but they're trading at better than 1:1 right now). Furthermore, this was excluding storage which more than triples the total price. Yes. Bringing the total price to almost that of nuclear. But unlike nuclear -- the price of which increased continuously from the 60s through early 90s while production was the highest it has ever been -- they are both dropping precipitously. So much so that the whole system cost could plausibly be lower than just the steam turbine and heat exchanger component before a new reactor would open (which is already mass produced more than any other production technology). By all means build nuclear, but do it on a level playing field. Either give 60 year guaranteed prices at 2-4x current market rate, zero risk loans, and free insurance to all zero carbon sources with >90% availability or none.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > But unlike nuclear -- the price of which increased continuously from the 60s through early 90s while production was the highest it has ever been This is the complete opposite of reality. Nuclear saw it's largest period of growth during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following the mid 1970s growth tapered off, and higher prices ensued as economies of scale were lost. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... Here's a chart from that paper plotting plant construction vs cost over time. The big cluster of cheap plants in the late 60s and early 70s is what nuclear looks like when economies of scale are leveraged: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0301421516300106-gr2.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03014215163001...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Now you're just gaslighting. That's an initial mild decrease after the first ten or so non experimental reactors followed by an exponential increase as the industry found the myriad ways fission plants could kill everyone around them and added all the safety features advocates are so fond of shouting about. It's like talking out of one side of your mouth about how advanced and safe your new electric SUV is (for the driver), whilst claiming it would be cheaper than a bicycle because you could in principle manufacture something with the same performance and safety as a model T for $5k so taxpayers should give you free loans and infinite insurance. The people of Niger are the pedestrians in this analogy.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        The plants constructed after three mile island don't actually have considerably different designs. The main things dictating a tractor's safety is the design (chiefly, pressurized water reactors versus boiling water reactors) and the existence of secondary containment. All plants have secondary containment in the US. And most, both before and after Three Mile Island, are pressurized water reactors. The designs of nuclear plants didn't change appreciably, but what did was the pace of plant construction. It got smaller, and economies of scale were lost. If you're going to accuse me of dishonesty, it'd be good to at least try to explain what I lied about. Did plant construction not slow down? You have the history of nuclear plant construction available to you in the previous comment. If you want to make the claim that it was plant designs changing that led to raised costs, then it'd be good to explain how nuclear plants changed.

Manuel_D 4y ago

That was an exceptionally low price, as per the article the other end was $.40 per MWh (actually Euro, but they're trading at better than 1:1 right now). Furthermore, this was excluding storage which more than triples the total price. Solar is indeed better than nuclear if your goal is to reduce the amount of fossil fuel use by shutting coal and gas plants down during sunny days. But if the goal is a total elimination of fossil fuel use, then the cost of storage has to be included and nuclear wins out.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> That was an exceptionally low price, as per the article the other end was $.40 per MWh (actually Euro, but they're trading at better than 1:1 right now). Furthermore, this was excluding storage which more than triples the total price. Yes. Bringing the total price to almost that of nuclear. But unlike nuclear -- the price of which increased continuously from the 60s through early 90s while production was the highest it has ever been -- they are both dropping precipitously. So much so that the whole system cost could plausibly be lower than just the steam turbine and heat exchanger component before a new reactor would open (which is already mass produced more than any other production technology). By all means build nuclear, but do it on a level playing field. Either give 60 year guaranteed prices at 2-4x current market rate, zero risk loans, and free insurance to all zero carbon sources with >90% availability or none.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > But unlike nuclear -- the price of which increased continuously from the 60s through early 90s while production was the highest it has ever been This is the complete opposite of reality. Nuclear saw it's largest period of growth during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following the mid 1970s growth tapered off, and higher prices ensued as economies of scale were lost. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... Here's a chart from that paper plotting plant construction vs cost over time. The big cluster of cheap plants in the late 60s and early 70s is what nuclear looks like when economies of scale are leveraged: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0301421516300106-gr2.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03014215163001...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Now you're just gaslighting. That's an initial mild decrease after the first ten or so non experimental reactors followed by an exponential increase as the industry found the myriad ways fission plants could kill everyone around them and added all the safety features advocates are so fond of shouting about. It's like talking out of one side of your mouth about how advanced and safe your new electric SUV is (for the driver), whilst claiming it would be cheaper than a bicycle because you could in principle manufacture something with the same performance and safety as a model T for $5k so taxpayers should give you free loans and infinite insurance. The people of Niger are the pedestrians in this analogy.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      The plants constructed after three mile island don't actually have considerably different designs. The main things dictating a tractor's safety is the design (chiefly, pressurized water reactors versus boiling water reactors) and the existence of secondary containment. All plants have secondary containment in the US. And most, both before and after Three Mile Island, are pressurized water reactors. The designs of nuclear plants didn't change appreciably, but what did was the pace of plant construction. It got smaller, and economies of scale were lost. If you're going to accuse me of dishonesty, it'd be good to at least try to explain what I lied about. Did plant construction not slow down? You have the history of nuclear plant construction available to you in the previous comment. If you want to make the claim that it was plant designs changing that led to raised costs, then it'd be good to explain how nuclear plants changed.