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Although I'm not a huge proponent of nuclear power over renewables, I'm not sure the overruns in those projects are a good argument. These projects become hard
by jemmyw 7mo ago
Although I'm not a huge proponent of nuclear power over renewables, I'm not sure the overruns in those projects are a good argument. These projects become hard to cost and understand up front because so few are built. If the UK built 10 then the costs would come down and the knowledge and experience would grow.
- jacquesm 7mo agoThat's the problem: the cost doesn't really go down. You can only operate nuclear if you guarantee the prices a decade ahead. That's just not realistic and the end result is that you'll end up subsidizing ever KWh produced and then you still have to factor in decommissioning costs. Nuclear is fantastic technology, but we can do so much better.
- Gud 7mo agoSweden builts a lot of nuclear reactors and they have been amazingly profitable for us. Unfortunately, many were dismantled before their end of life and we are now stuck with high energy prices. There is no natural law that says nuclear must be expensive. Correctly managed, it is an excellent power source.
- ViewTrick1002 7mo agoHow many trillions in subsidies should we hand out to "try one more time" with nuclear power when renewables and storage already is the cheapest energy source in human history?
- jmyeet 7mo agoCost overruns are a great argument even if you ignore the massive time overruns, which you can't. All those cost overruns factor into the electricty price forever. Flamanville has a 60 year lifespan for this reason and even then has an estimated cost of €138/MWh [1]. Compare that to Cestas at €108/MWh [2]. Go further south and Spain has recently been paying €25/MWh [3]. [1]: https://www.powermag.com/flamanville-3-europes-hard-won-nuclear-milestone/ https://www.powermag.com/flamanville-3-europes-hard-won-nucl... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/currencies/new-french-solar-farm-europes-biggest-cheaper-than-new-nuclear-idUSKBN0TK5GV/ https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/currencies/new-frenc... [3]: https://ratedpower.com/blog/spanish-government-solar/ https://ratedpower.com/blog/spanish-government-solar/
- amarant 7mo agoCompare it to Swedish electricity prices in the winter which are around SEK 3/kWh, or roughly €300/MWh. Are you offering to cut my energy bill in half? Yes please!
- halper 7mo agoDuring the most expensive month in recent years, the price has (on average) been <150 öre/kWh. Like prices of dinosaur soup at the pump, the majority of the cost for an individual end consumer is not the electricity itself. On top of the market price, you pay fixed two fixed fees, transfer tariffs, surcharges, sales tax (moms), energy tax and other things I have forgotten.
- ViewTrick1002 7mo ago> Compare it to Swedish electricity prices in the winter which are around SEK 3/kWh, or roughly €300/MWh. The averge electricity price in SE3 this winter, which had nuclear outages, was €100-110/MWh. New built nuclear power requires €170-230/MWh for 40 years after the completion. Adding on taxes, VAT etc. means that to power the average Swedish home with new built nuclear power the average monthly bill needs to be €540. That is summer as winter. Using extremely CAPEX heavy nuclear power to fix problems existing a few percent of the year is economic lunacy.
- pfdietz 7mo agoThey're hard to cost, which means that the numbers that are given are more aspirational than realistic. It's in the interest of those touting projects to be as optimistic as is tolerable when the estimate costs -- and everyone expects them to do this, so if they didn't and were more realistic they'd go nowhere.