3 ms·
> A 1 GW offshore wind farm costs about 1 billion A 1 GW offshore wind farm does not produce anywhere close to 1 GW most of the time. A 1 GW nuclear reactor c
by himinlomax 2y ago
> A 1 GW offshore wind farm costs about 1 billion
A 1 GW offshore wind farm does not produce anywhere close to 1 GW most of the time.
A 1 GW nuclear reactor can produce 1 GW 90%+ of the time, with the downtime being _scheduled_ maintenance.
- epistasis 2y agoNuclear plants trip off all the time. It was a big problem in one of Texas' recent cold snaps where people died. And many of those nuclear down times are for month+ times. Good luck getting enough batteries to get through that! Offshore wind typically has a capacity factor of ~50%. Add a smaller number of batteries than you would need for nuclear, and it's going to be cost competitive against any new build. As far as if it's cost competitive with TMI, I'm not so sure. New build nuclear is likely going to be >$190/MWh. Running the numbers being bandied about for the "Pennsylvania GDP increase", which is a really funny way to say "cost of the electricity for 20 years," and you get $115/MWh. Which is really pricy still. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to get TMI going again, just that it's pricy, and there's likely lots of other constraints that went into deciding to do this.