Comments on: Nuclear power, Part 2: The price is not right

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:39:02 +0000

I’ve read that the costs for new coal plants has also gone way up. I imagine that since many of the materials to build them are the same, such as industrial metals, the increases are partly because of that.

With China and Asia in a huge building boom and the US dollar having dropped as far as it has, at least industrial metal prices aren’t coming down either. But then prices for Concentrated Solar Power which uses alot of industrial metals would be increasing as well. I’ve read that prices for wind turbines have gone up also, partly because of the demand for them, but I’m sure some because of raw industrial metal prices.

Which is why it might be helpful to make a comparison accross the board of all energy sources because the building of new plants would be affected by price increases in the same way.

which makes the case for efficiency improvements.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:46:03 +0000

In my previous post, I only mentioned industrial metals as having cost increases. cost increases would be on many constuction items like cement. I had read somewhere that turbine prices were increasing, partly because of all those going to China.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:46:32 +0000

Can we get some numbers on what the various power generation plants (gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.) cost to build on a per kwh basis? This article is supposed to make me pause, but how do I know nuclear isn’t the cheapest? I’m 100% behind renewables, but have no data to refute the “nuclear is cheapest” argument by looking at this data in isolation.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:28:47 +0000

Dennis, I have previously blogged on this.
A very good apples to apples comparison was done for the California PUC.
http://www.ethree.com/cpuc_ghg_model.html
Go to “Generation costs (word doc)(11/16/07)”

By: Mitra Ardron

Mitra Ardron — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:39:47 +0000

Costs are also deceptive - what gets included, and excluded is as much political as economic. For nukes, do you count in the cost of waste disposal (never been done); health hazards; insurance against the high magnitude cost of a low-risk catastrophic accident or the surface-to-air missiles needed to protect it. For oil do you factor in the cost of invading someone else’s country to steal it. For centralised systems have you factored in the cost of the grid.

And also timing … Coal Sequestration may be initially cheap but what happens when the cheap storages run out. And do you count the cost of Solar now, or based on the economies of scale already evident in price reductions?

- Mitra

By: Russell Lowes

Russell Lowes — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:33:20 +0000

Joe,
Thanks for the reply, giving us the Energy & Environmental Economics Inc. website. This comparison is helpful in seeing where we stand with current economics of different options.
Nuclear energy estimates are rising dramatically, outpacing the cost increases for coal, natural gas, etc. This is due to the fact that the nuclear industry was underestimating the costs toward the beginning of the decade.
The nuclear industry was underestimating costs in the last round. The average 1980s finished cost of a nuke was about 3.2 times the original cost estimate, compared with coal plants at 1.5.
This time around, cost estimates have gone from $1000-2000/kilowatt installed, a few years ago, to up to $10,000/KW today — a five to tenfold increase!
A nuke at 10,000/KW, at a 40-year lifespan at 85% capacity factor (total number of KW produced divided by the design rating of KW), assuming an annual fixed charge rate of 15% (levelized annual payback per year for 30 years), the capital payback portion alone would be $151 per megawatt-hour. This is just capital payback and does not include fuel, operation and maintenance (O&M), waste management, subsidies, or transmission and distribution.
The study you refer us to estimates costs for nuclear to be $154/megawatt-hour, including capital, fuel and O&M. Of course, this study was done last year, and the authors have some catching up to do.
My guess is that we will be catching up for a long time to the increasing costs of nuclear energy. This will be especially true when we throw in a Yucca Mountain waste facility or two, or more, and start to remediate the other aspects of waste like mine and mill tailings.
A new website I have been working on at www.SafeEnergyAnalyst.org is put together to help with some of these cost issues.
Again, it is helpful in formulating solutions to get these analyses out there.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:25:34 +0000

We have an interesting situation developing…

1. Righties love the free market and hate government support–look at their repeated attempts to kill Amtrak funding, for example.

2. Righties love nuclear power.

3. Nuclear power can’t possibly stand on its own in a free market.

Perhaps once the righties’ heads start exploding we can harness the released energy.

By: hapa

hapa — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:01:24 +0000

Perhaps once the righties’ heads start exploding we can harness the released energy.

like fusion, i fear this is an impossible dream. cognitive dissonance just isn’t a reliable catalyst in some brains — or i should say that it is suppressed in the reaction by ideological fury. reduce the inhibitor, and you get better thinking, reducing the cognitive dissonance. it’s a no-win situation.

By: psp game downloads

psp game downloads — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:02:31 +0000

In October 2007, Florida Power and Light (FPL), “a leader in nuclear power generation,” presented its detailed cost estimate for new nukes to the Florida Public Service Commission. It concluded that two units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost from $5,500 to $8,100 per kilowatt — $12 billion to $18 billion total!(These are the actual costs, not adjusted for inflation.)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:39:40 +0000

Go to “Generation costs (word doc)(11/16/07)”

That document is a fantasy. A 27-40% capacity factor for wind?

In practice (eg. Germany), it’s closer to 17-20%. That alone puts wind on an equal cost footing with even their estimate nuclear, furthermore the cost estimate for wind totally ignores the cost of grid integration (smart grid technology and monitoring to counteract wind’s intermittency is expensive as hell).

And their estimate for the cost of fuel for nuclear is totally off the wall - they have it costing an equal amount to coal for equivalent energy generated! That would require a ten-fifty fold increase in the price of uranium…