4 ms·

Not cheaper at all by all accounts, this article included.

exe34 2y ago
that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost, while for everything else we only include the immediate costs. for example, oil and gas have only been so cheap for so long because we didn't include the cost of climate adaptation, mass migration, geoengineering, etc.
- locallost 2y ago
  I don't know what you base this on. Nuclear is heavily subsidized and cannot survive on its own. The price of nuclear waste storage is usually not included and even when money is put aside it's not enough. Germany's plant operators paid 23 billion to wash their hands of the mess and the tax payers will cover the rest (estimates go over 100 billion). Sellafield in the UK will cost over 200 billion to clean up. The French government is perpetually bailing out EDF and doing so as we speak because the EDF can't fund maintenance and building of its own planta. Etc. Etc.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > price of nuclear waste storage is usually not included We don’t include the cost of disposing of spent panels and turbines either. Nuclear waste’s risks are hyped beyond reason. What kills nuclear is the capital cost of building it. In the end, it’s fine. We’ll do gas + wind + solar and that will take us through 2050.
    - locallost 2y ago
      The sentence "that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost" is wrong and that's it.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > sentence "that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost" is wrong Correct, the LCOE of nuclear is much higher than competitors’. Most of that, however, is regulatory, and it’s far from clear how much is necessary.
      - exe34 2y ago
        i should have said, "the cost of nuclear in any conversation". because the moment you give a cost for nuclear, some very smart person will slam their hand on the table and start talking about the cost of waste disposal (which is pretty small), but they never seem to even try to quantify how much it'll cost to remove carbon from the atmosphere for the coal that's getting burnt instead (e.g. Germany).
        locallost 2y ago
        Even this is wrong as that number you will give will end up being just a fraction of the actual cost to build it. The cost of waste disposal is not small either, it is easily in the trillions for the waste we have now. E.g. Sellafield is estimated to be in the 250B pound range, and that's just one country. It also doesn't include the reactor decommissioning costs which end up in the billions per reactor range also. And it doesn't include the cleanup of a meltdown. Fukushima cost 200 billion to clean up, a massive effort that in the end mostly failed. People are still measuring high levels of radiation. It's interesting you mention carbon costs. It's a fair point but also does not end up in nuclear's favor. Germany has been deploying more than a 1GW of solar per month this and last year. This will produce as much as two reactors worth of electricity (actually more but ok). If they were trying to shutdown coal plants with nuclear it would take around 15 years for those two reactors, likely more. So instead of their coal plants running for decades as they build out nuclear, they are sitting idly because solar deployment is quick. This matters too.
        exe34 2y ago
        and where do they pull the sunshine out of at night?

that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost, while for everything else we only include the immediate costs. for example, oil and gas have only been so cheap for so long because we didn't include the cost of climate adaptation, mass migration, geoengineering, etc.

locallost 2y ago
I don't know what you base this on. Nuclear is heavily subsidized and cannot survive on its own. The price of nuclear waste storage is usually not included and even when money is put aside it's not enough. Germany's plant operators paid 23 billion to wash their hands of the mess and the tax payers will cover the rest (estimates go over 100 billion). Sellafield in the UK will cost over 200 billion to clean up. The French government is perpetually bailing out EDF and doing so as we speak because the EDF can't fund maintenance and building of its own planta. Etc. Etc.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > price of nuclear waste storage is usually not included We don’t include the cost of disposing of spent panels and turbines either. Nuclear waste’s risks are hyped beyond reason. What kills nuclear is the capital cost of building it. In the end, it’s fine. We’ll do gas + wind + solar and that will take us through 2050.
  - locallost 2y ago
    The sentence "that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost" is wrong and that's it.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > sentence "that's because the cost of nuclear includes every possible cost" is wrong Correct, the LCOE of nuclear is much higher than competitors’. Most of that, however, is regulatory, and it’s far from clear how much is necessary.
    - exe34 2y ago
      i should have said, "the cost of nuclear in any conversation". because the moment you give a cost for nuclear, some very smart person will slam their hand on the table and start talking about the cost of waste disposal (which is pretty small), but they never seem to even try to quantify how much it'll cost to remove carbon from the atmosphere for the coal that's getting burnt instead (e.g. Germany).
      - locallost 2y ago
        Even this is wrong as that number you will give will end up being just a fraction of the actual cost to build it. The cost of waste disposal is not small either, it is easily in the trillions for the waste we have now. E.g. Sellafield is estimated to be in the 250B pound range, and that's just one country. It also doesn't include the reactor decommissioning costs which end up in the billions per reactor range also. And it doesn't include the cleanup of a meltdown. Fukushima cost 200 billion to clean up, a massive effort that in the end mostly failed. People are still measuring high levels of radiation. It's interesting you mention carbon costs. It's a fair point but also does not end up in nuclear's favor. Germany has been deploying more than a 1GW of solar per month this and last year. This will produce as much as two reactors worth of electricity (actually more but ok). If they were trying to shutdown coal plants with nuclear it would take around 15 years for those two reactors, likely more. So instead of their coal plants running for decades as they build out nuclear, they are sitting idly because solar deployment is quick. This matters too.
        exe34 2y ago
        and where do they pull the sunshine out of at night?