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I see this comment regularly. I also see the complete opposite comment regularly (that even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far ch

I see this comment regularly. I also see the complete opposite comment regularly (that even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else). It is usually stated as fact with no backup. I’m open to being swayed either way by evidence. Do you have a link that represents the data that leads you to this conclusion? And ditto for those who disagree with you. Otherwise it’s just random people saying the other person is wrong.

wolverine876 3y ago
I don't understand your comment. > even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else What in the GP addresses that question? What I mean to say doesn't require data, but perhaps I didn't communicate well.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> usually stated as fact with no backup It usually comes down to two factors. One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st. We’ve built two AP1000s in America, both in the same series. China has built four, one in just nine years (multi-year delay for coolant pumps), in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue. The meta-debate, however, is between and and or. I’ve seen no good reason not to pursue both building nukes, where the cost curve is unknown, and building wind and solar, where the details around storage (and how we’ll pay for it) is unknown.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  > One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. What long economic payback time means is that the risks are huge. A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s. A 60 year payback time and it's 1940s and the second world war is raging. How reasonable is it for Churchill, FDR and Stalin to predict energy investments that they only expect to get returns on in the 2020s? All while competing solutions are already eating nuclear energy's lunch. Trying to use long amortization is simply a crutch by people who do not understand basic economics. You can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects. The chosen 20 years are simply because it is more economically efficient to replace them early, because what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it. Engineering a renewable plant for 40 or 60 years is trivial, it simply is not worth it. A read for you is: "Understanding the Time Value of Money" https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s Don’t do that. China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting. > can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects No, you can’t, because they aren’t being built to actually last that long. Nukes are. > what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it You’re confusing technological progress with the time value of money. The former is unpredictable, particularly between two technologies progressing at different frontiers.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting. Maybe it's safety, democracy (locals and others get a say in having a local nuclear plant) or lots of other things we could speculate. What does the evidence say? And even if permitting is involved, that could just be the mechanism of safety, democracy, etc. Words like 'obviously' and 'bunk' (in a prior comment) aren't persuasive, just provocative - they signal to me that you won't listen to anyone else (maybe you don't mean it that way).
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What does the evidence say? That it’s not safety related. The evidence being in the block you quoted: it shouldn’t take 10 years to clear a wire through environmental review.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        If someone has the evidence, that would be great. Your comments seem so dismissive and determined that it's hard to take them at face value. Do you work in the industry?
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > China has built four, one in just four years, in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue. We have much more evidence of contruction being too slow (if that's what you mean); why is one example from the other side more convincing? Also, China is not directly comparable, being able to undemocratically externalize the welfare of residents, construction workers, and operators. Also, the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak ? > the anti-nukes ... the pro-nuke Maybe there are also people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > why is one example from the other side more convincing Because it’s a Gen III+ design. > the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak It’s a new design. > people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data Very few people who have done this conclude we should go all in on a single solution. Nuclear, natural gas, solar and wind look like a solid mix.
    - analognoise 3y ago
      Why do you need natural gas in that mix at all?
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Why do you need natural gas in that mix at all? It’s cleaner than the alternatives and has its distribution infrastructure already built. While waiting for more solar, or waiting for more solar and wind and nukes, those coal and oil plants are still burning.
      - peterfirefly 3y ago
        We don't need it -- or wind and solar -- if we have enough nuclear. We are very far from having enough nuclear.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  > where the details around storage (and how we’ll pay for it) is unknown. The storage details are not unknown. Battery prices are very known and continuously decreasing. As are the costs for wider grids. As are the costs of hydro storage. Some of them may be higher than we’d like, but they’re very known and going down. Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster. Even in China, they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > storage details are not unknown. Battery prices are very known and continuously decreasing They’re known and currently high. The unknown is when it reaches a lower level. > Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster AP1000s are being built faster. We don’t know if we can manage cheaper. > they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear Yes. Both. That’s my point.
mpweiher 3y ago
"LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years" https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANES.pdf https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...
- adrianN 3y ago
  After costing about three to four times that much for the first 40 years of operating, if the assumptions in the paper are met…
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    At that time, you’ll be at least on your second and likely on your third set of panels. Still the same reactor chugging away…
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Theseus' reactor.
ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Take Hinkley Point C, a Nth of a kind nuclear powerplant under construction in the UK. After much turmoil the government negotiated a fixed strike price for £127/MWh = $160/MWh for 35 years after construction. That is simply insane costs to pay for electricity. Those costs are expected and is why the only projects that ever gets going have government backing. On top of this we subsidize the accident insurance. In the US it called the Price Anderson act, each nuclear plant pays a miniscule insurance premium compared to the Fukushima accident cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
- fexatious 3y ago
  That's about $0.16/KWh which is the average electricity rate across the whole US and significantly less than the price in the Northeast. I haven't dug into whether that's apples to apples - whether the country average is (generation + delivery) or just generation, while the rate bing paid to the plant is presumably just generation. But either way just the cost of electricity generation ignoring delivery on my bill is quite a bit higher than that.
  - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
    For Hinkley Point C that is only generation. No delivery. Add another 10 - 20 cents for delivery depending on if it's a city or rural.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      That cheap green German electricity is currently > 40 cents per kWh. Last I checked that was with the subsidies (in use most places right now) that buffer the Russia-induced energy crisis. These are running out, partly because the way all the different subsidies were being hidden was unconstitutional.
      - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
        Now you don't know what you are talking about. German wholesale electricity prices are both cheaper than French and in line with the rest of Europe. For the public there are quite high taxes to encourage energy efficiency, which the industry of course does not pay.

wolverine876 3y ago

I don't understand your comment. > even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else What in the GP addresses that question? What I mean to say doesn't require data, but perhaps I didn't communicate well.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> usually stated as fact with no backup It usually comes down to two factors. One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st. We’ve built two AP1000s in America, both in the same series. China has built four, one in just nine years (multi-year delay for coolant pumps), in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue. The meta-debate, however, is between and and or. I’ve seen no good reason not to pursue both building nukes, where the cost curve is unknown, and building wind and solar, where the details around storage (and how we’ll pay for it) is unknown.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
> One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. What long economic payback time means is that the risks are huge. A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s. A 60 year payback time and it's 1940s and the second world war is raging. How reasonable is it for Churchill, FDR and Stalin to predict energy investments that they only expect to get returns on in the 2020s? All while competing solutions are already eating nuclear energy's lunch. Trying to use long amortization is simply a crutch by people who do not understand basic economics. You can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects. The chosen 20 years are simply because it is more economically efficient to replace them early, because what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it. Engineering a renewable plant for 40 or 60 years is trivial, it simply is not worth it. A read for you is: "Understanding the Time Value of Money" https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s Don’t do that. China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting. > can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects No, you can’t, because they aren’t being built to actually last that long. Nukes are. > what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it You’re confusing technological progress with the time value of money. The former is unpredictable, particularly between two technologies progressing at different frontiers.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting. Maybe it's safety, democracy (locals and others get a say in having a local nuclear plant) or lots of other things we could speculate. What does the evidence say? And even if permitting is involved, that could just be the mechanism of safety, democracy, etc. Words like 'obviously' and 'bunk' (in a prior comment) aren't persuasive, just provocative - they signal to me that you won't listen to anyone else (maybe you don't mean it that way).
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > What does the evidence say? That it’s not safety related. The evidence being in the block you quoted: it shouldn’t take 10 years to clear a wire through environmental review.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        If someone has the evidence, that would be great. Your comments seem so dismissive and determined that it's hard to take them at face value. Do you work in the industry?
wolverine876 3y ago
> China has built four, one in just four years, in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue. We have much more evidence of contruction being too slow (if that's what you mean); why is one example from the other side more convincing? Also, China is not directly comparable, being able to undemocratically externalize the welfare of residents, construction workers, and operators. Also, the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak ? > the anti-nukes ... the pro-nuke Maybe there are also people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > why is one example from the other side more convincing Because it’s a Gen III+ design. > the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak It’s a new design. > people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data Very few people who have done this conclude we should go all in on a single solution. Nuclear, natural gas, solar and wind look like a solid mix.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    Why do you need natural gas in that mix at all?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Why do you need natural gas in that mix at all? It’s cleaner than the alternatives and has its distribution infrastructure already built. While waiting for more solar, or waiting for more solar and wind and nukes, those coal and oil plants are still burning.
    - peterfirefly 3y ago
      We don't need it -- or wind and solar -- if we have enough nuclear. We are very far from having enough nuclear.
_aavaa_ 3y ago
> where the details around storage (and how we’ll pay for it) is unknown. The storage details are not unknown. Battery prices are very known and continuously decreasing. As are the costs for wider grids. As are the costs of hydro storage. Some of them may be higher than we’d like, but they’re very known and going down. Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster. Even in China, they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > storage details are not unknown. Battery prices are very known and continuously decreasing They’re known and currently high. The unknown is when it reaches a lower level. > Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster AP1000s are being built faster. We don’t know if we can manage cheaper. > they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear Yes. Both. That’s my point.

mpweiher 3y ago

"LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years" https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANES.pdf https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...

adrianN 3y ago
After costing about three to four times that much for the first 40 years of operating, if the assumptions in the paper are met…
- mpweiher 3y ago
  At that time, you’ll be at least on your second and likely on your third set of panels. Still the same reactor chugging away…
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Theseus' reactor.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago

Take Hinkley Point C, a Nth of a kind nuclear powerplant under construction in the UK. After much turmoil the government negotiated a fixed strike price for £127/MWh = $160/MWh for 35 years after construction. That is simply insane costs to pay for electricity. Those costs are expected and is why the only projects that ever gets going have government backing. On top of this we subsidize the accident insurance. In the US it called the Price Anderson act, each nuclear plant pays a miniscule insurance premium compared to the Fukushima accident cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

fexatious 3y ago
That's about $0.16/KWh which is the average electricity rate across the whole US and significantly less than the price in the Northeast. I haven't dug into whether that's apples to apples - whether the country average is (generation + delivery) or just generation, while the rate bing paid to the plant is presumably just generation. But either way just the cost of electricity generation ignoring delivery on my bill is quite a bit higher than that.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  For Hinkley Point C that is only generation. No delivery. Add another 10 - 20 cents for delivery depending on if it's a city or rural.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    That cheap green German electricity is currently > 40 cents per kWh. Last I checked that was with the subsidies (in use most places right now) that buffer the Russia-induced energy crisis. These are running out, partly because the way all the different subsidies were being hidden was unconstitutional.
    - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
      Now you don't know what you are talking about. German wholesale electricity prices are both cheaper than French and in line with the rest of Europe. For the public there are quite high taxes to encourage energy efficiency, which the industry of course does not pay.