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> To the best of our knowledge of technology and industry, something like that does not typically get cheap. History demonstrates otherwise, though: nuclear wa

> To the best of our knowledge of technology and industry, something like that does not typically get cheap. History demonstrates otherwise, though: nuclear was cheap in the late 1960s and early 1970s [1]. This is a period of time where nuclear power was built at scale, with the same designs built repeatedly. A production run of 40 steam generators is much cheaper on a per-unit cost basis than a production run of 4 steam generators. Lower numbers of nuclear projects following 3 Mile Island reduced this economy of scale, resulting in higher costs per unit. It's quite amusing to see someone talk about a 10-100x reduction in the cost of intermittent sources so confidently, yet discounting the possibility of cheaper nuclear power despite the historical precedence. Unfortunately, renewable costs have largely flatlined and started to increase [2]. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... 2. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/12/04/the-renewables-business-faces-a-make-or-break-moment https://www.economist.com/business/2023/12/04/the-renewables... Relevant chart: https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20231209_WBC618.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80...

epistasis 3y ago
> It's quite amusing to see someone talk about a 10-100x reduction in the cost of intermittent sources so confidently, yet discounting the possibility of cheaper nuclear power despite the historical precedence. Sure, find it amusing, but your own sources demonstrate a 5x difference in the past "cheap" era of nuclear to its more expensive current era. Even if we could somehow go back to knowing less about nuclear, or get to an era of cheaper labor, then we are only looking at a 5x decrease. And the trend is for higher costs, now lower costs with nuclear. TMI is a completely irrelevant event in the ordering of new nuclear, the real problem was that too many reactors had been ordered, too many of them got behind schedule, and there was a massive oversupply of electricity, and not enough demand. In 1985, a Forbes cover story by James Cook called this misprediction of demand "the largest managerial disaster in business history.” https://rmi.org/insight/nuclear-follies/ https://rmi.org/insight/nuclear-follies/ >Unfortunately, renewable costs have largely flatlined and started to increase In order to make such a claim you have to really cherry pick, which is why you are using an out-of-date image during a global supply crunch. There have been several points in history where solar power had a year or two of stalled or even increased prices, only to drop precipitously soon after the supply-chain crunch had been solved. So are you predicting both a reversal of nuclear cost increases, and even decreases to the point of a 10x drop? And that the trend of the past decades for renewables will stop? To predict two such very large reversals, without evidence, is not atypical in the nuclear fan crowd, but I do not operate with such faith, and prefer data.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  > but I do not operate with such faith, and prefer data. And what data is telling you that wind power is going to see a 100x drop? The reality is that only one of us has backed up our claims about the feasibly of lower costs with data. I pointed to the historical precedence of cheaper nuclear power. Your claim of 10-100x drop in costs is not.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Wind power dropped by only a factor of 3 over the last decade. Furthermore, these reductions in cost have largely stopped. Your linked chart misleadingly just picks the 2009 and 2019 years, and doesn't show the year by year progression. https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20231209_WBC618.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... The slope has largely flatlined, solar panels aren't getting much cheaper and neither is wind.
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Solar panels have dropped 42% in the last 12 months https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/solar-panel-prices-remain-low-up-two-years-says-industry-exec-2024-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/solar-panel-prices-r...
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        Except panel prices aren't the only component of solar power cost. There's also installation, maintenance, and energy conversion.
        3y ago
Retric 3y ago
Comparing the construction cost of nuclear with the lifetime cost of renewables gives wildly inaccurate cost estimates. Historically nuclear required ~500 highly skilled workers per GW for 50 years. Call it ~50 million / year * 50 years and labor alone is 2.5 Billion dollars. Fuel rods, replacement equipment, insurance, decommissioning, etc all add up. You want really cheap nuclear, find out how you can safely operate a nuclear power plant without 24/7 armed security, enrichment, etc. Lower construction costs alone just won’t cut it. We’re rapidly approaching the point where handing someone a fully built reactor for free and they can’t operate profitably without subsidies.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Quite the contrary, the cost of construction accounts 60-80% of the cost of nuclear power [1]. Operating costs of an individual nuclear plant may be large compared to an individual wind farm, but the former produces a lot more electricity. The operating costs of a nuclear plant are actually quite small compared to the amount of electricity they produce. That's why most of the talk is around reducing construction costs. 1. https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/
  - Retric 3y ago
    That 60-80% number is a lie. They are comparing 3 costs for different power sources (construction, fuel, O&M) but decommissioning for example isn’t included and it’s far high for nuclear than the others. Risk is another. Several nuclear reactors including Three Mile Island suffered catastrophic failure and not only failed to produce power but added explosive cleanup costs.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Decommissioning is not a major cost factor, amounting to a single digit percentage of the total cost. 400 million dollars may be a lot in nominal terms, but compared to nuclear plant costing tens of billions it's not a major factor [1]. Furthermore, in the US nuclear power plant operators are required to deposit into a fund to pay for future decommissioning [2]. It's factored into the cost, contrary to your assertions otherwise. 1. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/d... 2. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

epistasis 3y ago

> It's quite amusing to see someone talk about a 10-100x reduction in the cost of intermittent sources so confidently, yet discounting the possibility of cheaper nuclear power despite the historical precedence. Sure, find it amusing, but your own sources demonstrate a 5x difference in the past "cheap" era of nuclear to its more expensive current era. Even if we could somehow go back to knowing less about nuclear, or get to an era of cheaper labor, then we are only looking at a 5x decrease. And the trend is for higher costs, now lower costs with nuclear. TMI is a completely irrelevant event in the ordering of new nuclear, the real problem was that too many reactors had been ordered, too many of them got behind schedule, and there was a massive oversupply of electricity, and not enough demand. In 1985, a Forbes cover story by James Cook called this misprediction of demand "the largest managerial disaster in business history.” https://rmi.org/insight/nuclear-follies/ https://rmi.org/insight/nuclear-follies/ >Unfortunately, renewable costs have largely flatlined and started to increase In order to make such a claim you have to really cherry pick, which is why you are using an out-of-date image during a global supply crunch. There have been several points in history where solar power had a year or two of stalled or even increased prices, only to drop precipitously soon after the supply-chain crunch had been solved. So are you predicting both a reversal of nuclear cost increases, and even decreases to the point of a 10x drop? And that the trend of the past decades for renewables will stop? To predict two such very large reversals, without evidence, is not atypical in the nuclear fan crowd, but I do not operate with such faith, and prefer data.

Manuel_D 3y ago
> but I do not operate with such faith, and prefer data. And what data is telling you that wind power is going to see a 100x drop? The reality is that only one of us has backed up our claims about the feasibly of lower costs with data. I pointed to the historical precedence of cheaper nuclear power. Your claim of 10-100x drop in costs is not.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Wind power dropped by only a factor of 3 over the last decade. Furthermore, these reductions in cost have largely stopped. Your linked chart misleadingly just picks the 2009 and 2019 years, and doesn't show the year by year progression. https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20231209_WBC618.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... The slope has largely flatlined, solar panels aren't getting much cheaper and neither is wind.
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      Solar panels have dropped 42% in the last 12 months https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/solar-panel-prices-remain-low-up-two-years-says-industry-exec-2024-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/solar-panel-prices-r...
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        Except panel prices aren't the only component of solar power cost. There's also installation, maintenance, and energy conversion.
        3y ago

Retric 3y ago

Comparing the construction cost of nuclear with the lifetime cost of renewables gives wildly inaccurate cost estimates. Historically nuclear required ~500 highly skilled workers per GW for 50 years. Call it ~50 million / year * 50 years and labor alone is 2.5 Billion dollars. Fuel rods, replacement equipment, insurance, decommissioning, etc all add up. You want really cheap nuclear, find out how you can safely operate a nuclear power plant without 24/7 armed security, enrichment, etc. Lower construction costs alone just won’t cut it. We’re rapidly approaching the point where handing someone a fully built reactor for free and they can’t operate profitably without subsidies.

Manuel_D 3y ago
Quite the contrary, the cost of construction accounts 60-80% of the cost of nuclear power [1]. Operating costs of an individual nuclear plant may be large compared to an individual wind farm, but the former produces a lot more electricity. The operating costs of a nuclear plant are actually quite small compared to the amount of electricity they produce. That's why most of the talk is around reducing construction costs. 1. https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/ https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/
- Retric 3y ago
  That 60-80% number is a lie. They are comparing 3 costs for different power sources (construction, fuel, O&M) but decommissioning for example isn’t included and it’s far high for nuclear than the others. Risk is another. Several nuclear reactors including Three Mile Island suffered catastrophic failure and not only failed to produce power but added explosive cleanup costs.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Decommissioning is not a major cost factor, amounting to a single digit percentage of the total cost. 400 million dollars may be a lot in nominal terms, but compared to nuclear plant costing tens of billions it's not a major factor [1]. Furthermore, in the US nuclear power plant operators are required to deposit into a fund to pay for future decommissioning [2]. It's factored into the cost, contrary to your assertions otherwise. 1. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/d... 2. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...