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Re costs: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-

Re costs: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec... Yes, nuclear power has gotten more expensive with time but even still, today, in absolute terms, $/khw is competitive. > Grid-level system costs for intermittent renewables are large ($8-$50/MWh) but depend on country, context and technology (onshore wind < offshore wind < solar PV). Nuclear system costs are $1-3/MWh. Or https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45436 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45436 which shows that nuclear remains cheaper than wind and waaay cheaper than solar in California. And wind/solar prices AFAIK don’t factor in the additional cost of storage since we don’t pair wind/solar generation capacity with matching storage requirements. And in terms of why it’s gotten more expensive, part of that is naturally inflation. The other part is that nuclear keeps getting more regulations and we disinvest from building more. It’s the opposite of the Wright effect - when you build less of something and disinvest it gets more expensive to make. Some of the regulations are legit costs (e.g. making sure the plants remain safe and don’t melt down) but you’d be surprised at how much of it is BS driven by FUD (a not insignificant portion powered by FUD from fossil fuel companies who benefit from nuclear taking as long as possible). It’s also amusing to me the overlap between “renewables need more investment to replace grid fossil fuels” and “fusion instead of fission” camps. Like yes, fusion is exciting and I hope we get there some day. And we criminally underfund investment into it at government scale in the same way as we do with fission. But fusion’s road is even harder and longer out. Like we still don’t know how to generate more energy than we consume. It’s strictly in the pure research phase and is many many decades away from starting production and will take an even longer time to build out large amounts of capacity.

RandomLensman 3y ago
Check the link I posted, it has storage cost curves, too, Your second link has prices, not generation costs which is a much more difficult thing to compare. Inflation isn't specific to nuclear and regulations will continue to be part of nuclear. Over time, cheaper generation should win out - absent interventions - so nuclear isn't in a great place to start.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  > Your second link has prices, not generation costs which is a much more difficult thing to compare What is your distinction of "generation costs" vs prices? > Inflation isn't specific to nuclear and regulations will continue to be part of nuclear. Inflation is a bit relevant in that the average nuclear power plant age is 42. Solar installations by comparisons are a lot more recent. That means that inflation has operated on a longer time period than for solar. And again, I said that's a small part. The primary driver is we've divested from building nuclear because of overblown fears around safety of operation or security or whatever other fear you may associate with nuclear. As for "regulations will continue to be part of nuclear", that's why I'm saying. Part of investing in nuclear means organizing politically to remove the BS regulations and calling BS on things like security concerns which seem to be purely hypothetical. > Over time, cheaper generation should win out - absent interventions - so nuclear isn't in a great place to start. Huh? Like you're shifting the goal posts. It matters very little right now if the cost curve is better for solar. That's for 5-20 years from now and comparing it against a technology we've divested from is a false comparison. It's even more BS considering nuclear remains cheaper today even with effectively 0 investment (most funds have been going to maintenance only) and still remains cheaper than wind & solar. Nuclear can even outperform fossil fuels on price in some cases. But again. Cost to generate the energy is ultimately a very myopic view because fossil fuels externalize the true cost substantially and literally anything is better. It's estimated to cost $200 trillion dollars to zero out human carbon emissions by 2050 & if we fail it'll cost the US alone ~14.5 trillion dollars in the next 50 years (which again involves on externalizing and ignoring the impact of climate change since the biggest impact to the US is illegal immigration but the biggest direct financial impact is not to the US). Climate-related disasters already cost the world ~$650 billion dollars anually. By comparison the costs associated with building and cleaning up a nuclear power plant and cleaning it up seem quite trivial. Sure at some point solar may get cheaper in absolute dollars to. But it all doesn't matter because the thing we need to get to is negative carbon emissions. Oh and btw. Solar won't be able to solve that. The energy required to start pulling carbon out of the air en masse will require huge energy production that really only a nuclear power plant can scale sufficiently well to handle.
  - 3y ago

RandomLensman 3y ago

Check the link I posted, it has storage cost curves, too, Your second link has prices, not generation costs which is a much more difficult thing to compare. Inflation isn't specific to nuclear and regulations will continue to be part of nuclear. Over time, cheaper generation should win out - absent interventions - so nuclear isn't in a great place to start.

vlovich123 3y ago
> Your second link has prices, not generation costs which is a much more difficult thing to compare What is your distinction of "generation costs" vs prices? > Inflation isn't specific to nuclear and regulations will continue to be part of nuclear. Inflation is a bit relevant in that the average nuclear power plant age is 42. Solar installations by comparisons are a lot more recent. That means that inflation has operated on a longer time period than for solar. And again, I said that's a small part. The primary driver is we've divested from building nuclear because of overblown fears around safety of operation or security or whatever other fear you may associate with nuclear. As for "regulations will continue to be part of nuclear", that's why I'm saying. Part of investing in nuclear means organizing politically to remove the BS regulations and calling BS on things like security concerns which seem to be purely hypothetical. > Over time, cheaper generation should win out - absent interventions - so nuclear isn't in a great place to start. Huh? Like you're shifting the goal posts. It matters very little right now if the cost curve is better for solar. That's for 5-20 years from now and comparing it against a technology we've divested from is a false comparison. It's even more BS considering nuclear remains cheaper today even with effectively 0 investment (most funds have been going to maintenance only) and still remains cheaper than wind & solar. Nuclear can even outperform fossil fuels on price in some cases. But again. Cost to generate the energy is ultimately a very myopic view because fossil fuels externalize the true cost substantially and literally anything is better. It's estimated to cost $200 trillion dollars to zero out human carbon emissions by 2050 & if we fail it'll cost the US alone ~14.5 trillion dollars in the next 50 years (which again involves on externalizing and ignoring the impact of climate change since the biggest impact to the US is illegal immigration but the biggest direct financial impact is not to the US). Climate-related disasters already cost the world ~$650 billion dollars anually. By comparison the costs associated with building and cleaning up a nuclear power plant and cleaning it up seem quite trivial. Sure at some point solar may get cheaper in absolute dollars to. But it all doesn't matter because the thing we need to get to is negative carbon emissions. Oh and btw. Solar won't be able to solve that. The energy required to start pulling carbon out of the air en masse will require huge energy production that really only a nuclear power plant can scale sufficiently well to handle.
- 3y ago