Nuclear plants that are paid-off are producing power for $0.0172 a kilowatt-hour.

By the way, PV panels that are paid off are producing power for $0.00 a kwh. When my house is paid off, the mortgage will be $0.

One can find all sorts of false information published online by anti-nuclear advocates (and plenty of other people). When a person is obviously an anti-nuclear advocate in the first place, one tends to suspect that said person might not be entirely discrete in his choice of sources.

So are there any reputable, unbiased sources to support the .15/kwh claim, or is that just smoke?

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/pnucpwr.asp

one from the EIA:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ cneaf/ nuclear/ page/ analysis/ nuclearpower.html

and an article from the Deseret News from an anti-nuclear advocate claiming 13-16 cents with no evidence:

http://www.deseretnews.com/ article/ 1,5143,695251249,00.html

I’d have done more studying but my 10 seconds was up. Way up.

If you don’t want to defend your claims, you could just turn off comments.

Here’s a cut and paste summary from a table on page 5: Production 4.50, Amortization 6.83, Infrastructure 1.84, Profit 1.58, Sub-Total 14.75, Transmission and Distribution 5.00 = TOTAL 19.75 cents per Kwh.

If I read the study correctly, storage costs are included in the Production figure (my gut feeling is that number is optimistic). Further, I didn’t see anything for the insurance subsidy we give nukes.

FYI: “Phil Lusk is the Principal of Resource Development Associates, and has more than 25 years of professional experience in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Two projects received the National Award for Innovation from the U.S. Department of Energy. He has a B.A. in Energy and the Environment from the UNC-Chapel Hill, a M.A. in Economics from the University of South Carolina, and an Energy Management Program diploma from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. “I have also worked for a public utilities commission, a state energy agency, and as an appointive energy administrator for two governors.”

If you don’t like his numbers, explain where they are wrong.

The NRDC site also has this to say about nuclear power:

“The innate problems facing the nuclear industry have not been solved.”

“In sum, my advice to strengthen the state economies and the wonderful natural environment of the West, you should:
• oppose continued and massive taxpayer subsidies to mature energy technologies, including nuclear power;
• internalize the environmental cost of nuclear, and fossil-fueled plants by supporting a cap on CO2 emissions, and tightening regulatory controls on aquifer polluting coal and uranium mines and uranium mills; and
• call for a repeal of the inadequate EPA regulatory standards for the Yucca Mountain site.”

The EIA site states:
“Most of the risks in building nuclear power plants must be faced early in the plant’s life cycle. A fossil fuel plant faces its greatest risks, uncertain demand and fuel prices, after the plant begins operation.”

I would hope there’d be agreement that storage of nuclear waste and proliferation issues are two critical concerns whose costs are not addressed in that article.

And from the Deseret site, the article by Arjun Makhijani references a Keystone report on nuclear costs whose summary can be found here:

http://www.keystone.org/ spp/ documents/ ExecSummFinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007.pdf

Duke Energy, Exelon, General Electric and other large utilities participated in the report, so it’s safe to assume the numbers are conservative.

Here’s a quote from the Keystone report that supports Mr. Makhijani’s cost estimate: “We found that a reasonable range for the expected levelized cost of nuclear power is between 8 and 11 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) delivered to the grid.”

‘to the grid’, but not to my home, so throw in Mr. Lusk’s 5 cents per Kwh for transmission and it would appear these estimates for nuclear are from the mid to high teens.

I’m going to avoid a glib how-easy-it-was-to-find-this comment, because sometimes it is and sometimes this stuff is buried. But I’m with Joe on the request to explain where Mr. Lusk (and NIRS, for that matter) is off the mark.

That’s the blow-by-blow of what’s happened in this conversation.