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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 compa

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...
  - Retric 3y ago
    400m is definitely big enough to show up on that chart but again it’s a misleading number. Out of ~200 commercial, experimental or prototype reactors permanently shutdown ~17 reactors have actually been fully decommissioned in the lifetime of the nuclear industry. And the costs haven’t been 400 million each. Nuclear regulators let operators create a fund to eventually pay for cleanup after letting a site sit for decades to let shorter lived isotopes decay. The industry has convinced regulators to essentially let them off bathe hook assuming significant positive returns will eventually supply ~1-1.5 billion for cleanup efforts, with the government covering any gaps. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520304067?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Your article discusses the cost of decommissioning in the UK and Europe, my link was for American nuclear policy. Regardless, even 2-3x increases in decommissioning costs don't appreciably change the total cost of nuclear power. Again, 1-1.5 billion is in the single digit range out of total costs in the tens of billions.
      - Retric 3y ago
        Even single digit percentage demonstrates that 60% number is a lie, especially when you add another single digit for instance. Lumping all costs before the plant is operational into construction costs is similarly misleading. If your proposed solution drops physical construction costs by X%, but you talk about “construction costs” including land etc in other locations then the full X% savings isn’t there. IE: The maximum possible cost savings on construction is someone saying they will build it for you at zero cost. But if you’re forced to pay for the land and zoning etc to enable them to build then the “construction cost” bucket isn’t going to 0. Similarity when people say some tech like small modular reactors reduces the cost of building a reactor, but it still needs a cooling tower then it’s optimizing an even smaller bucket under construction costs dramatically reducing the actual benefit.
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        I'm still confused as to why you think the 60-80% figure is a lie. Even if you reallocate 1 billion out of the construction cost into the operational cost, that's still a single digit percentage out of a plant cost of $35B. Land is not a big factor in nuclear power plant cost. Not even remotely.
        Retric 3y ago
        It’s a lie because they calculated 60% of a smaller number than the total costs. There’s no well it’s not actually that big a deal if it’s really 58% or whatever no it’s just a lie. The upfront land cost isn’t that big I think that 1980 estimate had 0.2%. Except lands gone up a lot faster than inflation and loans are setup so you pay interest on that land for several years of construction and only after operating do you start paying down those loans. Land costs and plant sizes vary wildly let’s suppose you’re going to spend 100m on land and you’re paying 6%. Construction takes say 7 years from purchase though it can get a lot worse. By the time you have an actual power plant that’s 150m, but you still haven’t actually paid for the land you take another 30 years to pay off the loan so it’s more like 330 million. Not a huge number, but many different not huge numbers add up. Again, I am not saying land costs themselves are that significant, just that lumping those in when you talk about saving money on construction is misleading.

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...
- Retric 3y ago
  400m is definitely big enough to show up on that chart but again it’s a misleading number. Out of ~200 commercial, experimental or prototype reactors permanently shutdown ~17 reactors have actually been fully decommissioned in the lifetime of the nuclear industry. And the costs haven’t been 400 million each. Nuclear regulators let operators create a fund to eventually pay for cleanup after letting a site sit for decades to let shorter lived isotopes decay. The industry has convinced regulators to essentially let them off bathe hook assuming significant positive returns will eventually supply ~1-1.5 billion for cleanup efforts, with the government covering any gaps. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520304067?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Your article discusses the cost of decommissioning in the UK and Europe, my link was for American nuclear policy. Regardless, even 2-3x increases in decommissioning costs don't appreciably change the total cost of nuclear power. Again, 1-1.5 billion is in the single digit range out of total costs in the tens of billions.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Even single digit percentage demonstrates that 60% number is a lie, especially when you add another single digit for instance. Lumping all costs before the plant is operational into construction costs is similarly misleading. If your proposed solution drops physical construction costs by X%, but you talk about “construction costs” including land etc in other locations then the full X% savings isn’t there. IE: The maximum possible cost savings on construction is someone saying they will build it for you at zero cost. But if you’re forced to pay for the land and zoning etc to enable them to build then the “construction cost” bucket isn’t going to 0. Similarity when people say some tech like small modular reactors reduces the cost of building a reactor, but it still needs a cooling tower then it’s optimizing an even smaller bucket under construction costs dramatically reducing the actual benefit.
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        I'm still confused as to why you think the 60-80% figure is a lie. Even if you reallocate 1 billion out of the construction cost into the operational cost, that's still a single digit percentage out of a plant cost of $35B. Land is not a big factor in nuclear power plant cost. Not even remotely.
        Retric 3y ago
        It’s a lie because they calculated 60% of a smaller number than the total costs. There’s no well it’s not actually that big a deal if it’s really 58% or whatever no it’s just a lie. The upfront land cost isn’t that big I think that 1980 estimate had 0.2%. Except lands gone up a lot faster than inflation and loans are setup so you pay interest on that land for several years of construction and only after operating do you start paying down those loans. Land costs and plant sizes vary wildly let’s suppose you’re going to spend 100m on land and you’re paying 6%. Construction takes say 7 years from purchase though it can get a lot worse. By the time you have an actual power plant that’s 150m, but you still haven’t actually paid for the land you take another 30 years to pay off the loan so it’s more like 330 million. Not a huge number, but many different not huge numbers add up. Again, I am not saying land costs themselves are that significant, just that lumping those in when you talk about saving money on construction is misleading.