3 ms·

According to the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) in 2022 it cost approximately $1.06 per watt to install utility scale solar. So for the cost of the

According to the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) in 2022 it cost approximately $1.06 per watt to install utility scale solar. So for the cost of the 1.1 GW Vogtle 4 reactor, utilities could have installed approximately 32 GW of utility scale solar. Obviously this is an extremely simplified and naive calculation that doesn't account for cost or availability of land, transmission infrastructure, battery or other energy storage, etc.

epistasis 3y ago
That number does include the cost of land for the solar, which is fairly insignificant. For the cost of batteries, NREL published this review of reviews, and lands at ~480/kWh of capacity: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf So split the $35B (there's a recent $3B that hasn't made it wikipedia, as I understand it) half and half, and you get 17GW of solar, and 36GWh of storage. As far as translating this into per-kWh costs, most estimates I have seen put Vogtle at $0.17-$0.18/kWh. The equivalent for solar is $0.04/kWh. To charge a battery with that same solar, and then deliver it later, it's $0.13/kWh, when doing the napkin math with those NREL numbers up there.
- cma 3y ago
  Lifetime of panels and batteries vs modern nuclear plant? I guess also do the nuclear numbers use the real liability and disposal costs, or subsidized ones?
  - epistasis 3y ago
    The cost per kWh numbers take into account lifetimes and nuclear waste disposal
    - cma 3y ago
      What about Proce Anderson liability cap? Potential trillion dollar incidents reduced to $10 billion cap.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    PV panels will produce for at least 25-30 years with limited degradation in output. At that time, consider what state of the art will be, and that you can repower an existing PV plant trivially; you de-energize segments, manual labor replaces panels, and you re-energize. Old panels will get shipped for recycling (shredded and materials sorted for reuse).

epistasis 3y ago

That number does include the cost of land for the solar, which is fairly insignificant. For the cost of batteries, NREL published this review of reviews, and lands at ~480/kWh of capacity: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf So split the $35B (there's a recent $3B that hasn't made it wikipedia, as I understand it) half and half, and you get 17GW of solar, and 36GWh of storage. As far as translating this into per-kWh costs, most estimates I have seen put Vogtle at $0.17-$0.18/kWh. The equivalent for solar is $0.04/kWh. To charge a battery with that same solar, and then deliver it later, it's $0.13/kWh, when doing the napkin math with those NREL numbers up there.

cma 3y ago
Lifetime of panels and batteries vs modern nuclear plant? I guess also do the nuclear numbers use the real liability and disposal costs, or subsidized ones?
- epistasis 3y ago
  The cost per kWh numbers take into account lifetimes and nuclear waste disposal
  - cma 3y ago
    What about Proce Anderson liability cap? Potential trillion dollar incidents reduced to $10 billion cap.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  PV panels will produce for at least 25-30 years with limited degradation in output. At that time, consider what state of the art will be, and that you can repower an existing PV plant trivially; you de-energize segments, manual labor replaces panels, and you re-energize. Old panels will get shipped for recycling (shredded and materials sorted for reuse).