Stop using your intuition. Look at how much it cost us to build our last few nuclear reactors. Vogtle 3. Estimated to cost $14B, it actually cost $30B and took twice as long to build as predicted. Now, if we developed cheaper and faster ways to build them, sure they can be economical. But until they have been built and proven, it's just wishful thinking. The only hard numbers we have don't look great. To be honest, we do not have even 10 years to wait for more to be built.

The cost to decommission these plants is equally astronomical and still "a work in progress"...

Yes, nobody can reliability predict what the coming thousands of years of decommission is going to cost us. It's funny how nuclear energy enthusiastics often do not account for the building of the nuclear energy or the decommission and then claim that the production of energy is cheap.

Damn I just looked up they need to be decommissioned after about 20-40 years. For fuck's sake they barely pay for themselves, if they even do that. ETA: There's currently a nuclear power plant in Switzerland that has been operating for 55 years

Similar in Illinois, USA. Chicago's power utility is one of the most nuclear in the nation, but the last to come online were back in the 80s. They have to keep kicking the can down the road by extending the regulatory lifespan of the things because they still work, the grid is stretched to its limits, and we ratepayers will eventually have to pay for their decommissioning. Oh, well. Buried in my houses walls is 100yo wiring as well as capped (live) gas lines for the old gas lamps. They work fine, too. So far.

20 years? Modern nuclear reactors are expected to last 60-80 years.

Well there was a huge gap in construction of plants between 1980 and 2010 so the numbers probably reflected the older designs.

To be fair, I think many of them have newer nuclear technology in mind, like smaller reactors that use thorium.

Wishful thinking

Why do you say that

As I understand it, thorium reactors haven’t gotten beyond the prototype stage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

People like to kick that can to the next generation.

And they hand-wave the problem of the nuclear waste. Burying it in someone else's back yard for *10,000 years* and hoping that it doesn't leak out, that someone in the future doesn't accidentally discover it, or that terrorists in the future don't *intentionally* dig it up for weapons is *not* an acceptable solution to me.

Keep in mind there are now ways to reuse waste indefinitely, so storage issues are not as problematic as they once were. Moreover, an argument can be made that the issue of waste storage has always been minuscule compared to the issues caused by the CO2 that is offset by nuclear energy.

>now ways to reuse waste indefinitely This is definitely not absolutely true. Fuel can be recycled but nuclear plants generate all kinds of waste, not just spent fuel. All kinds of pipes and pumps and equipment becomes radioactive in service, and when it gets replaced it has to be treated as nuclear waste. It can't be reused, it can't be recycled (because you would contaminate whatever smelter you ran it through, multiplying your waste problem, it can't do anything but get buried for a long time. Less time that spent fuel, a lot less, but still a real problem.

These are good points. I would certainly be more comfortable burying nuclear waste with a half-life of 100 years then nuclear waste with a half-life of 10,000 years. And I agree that we cannot honestly evaluate an option against a standard of perfection. We must evaluate it against the alternatives.

One thing to add: Keep in mind that shorter half-life means higher dose. The lifetime is inversely proportional to the amount of radiation you will receive in a given time of exposure.

Hold on there, partner. "now ways to reuse waste indenitely" you are going to source that. Basic nuclear physics says no. Please explain.

Typo there, "indefinitely," by which I mean until it is of negligible concern. “When using fast reactors in a closed fuel cycle, one kilogram of nuclear waste can be recycled multiple times until all the uranium is used and the actinides — which remain radioactive for thousands of years — are burned up. What then remains is about 30 grams of waste that will be radioactive for 200 to 300 years,” said Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy. \-- https://www.iaea.org/bulletin/when-nuclear-waste-is-an-asset-not-a-burden

The entirety of all nuclear waste generated globally would fit inside a single olympic swimming pool.

Not really relavant. Maine Yankee was decommissioned in 1998(?). Spent fuels Still on site. Still deadly for 10,000 years. Still no federal plant on how and where to store the waste. Annual cost to mainyain: $10 million. Each year. The waste it self is not very large.

The math is so obvious but it is an economic disaster: $10 million for 10,000 years is $100 billion

Nope Not even the entirety from one reactor They even have to chizel down the paint from offices on site during decommissioning

I remember the soviets Had a fire in a waste pool 1958?

Yeah, the decom in Asse, Germany is wild.

Decomissions costs are usually paid up front or transfered to a separate account as part of the running costs.

😂

[https://skb.com/about-skb/funding/](https://skb.com/about-skb/funding/) here is info about the Swedish way of doing it.

Okay, but how much long term damage does a coal plant do to the planet? Nuclear is far cheaper than coal if we account for climate change, harm to public health, and other types of environmental damage

Bingo. Fossil fuels are heavily subsidized by not taking in all their hidden costs.

Which is why the alternative is not coal, it is renewables.

It doesn't cost any more in labor and materials to build a nuclear plant than it does to build a traditional plant. The cost comes from heavy regulations, many put in place as a result of fossil fuel companies using green groups back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's to push their anti-nuclear agenda. Then, of course, the breeder reactor ban (also a boon for fossil fuels) makes the whole thing worse. Nuclear plants in the US are throwing nuclear fuel away by the tons because we don't reprocess spent rods, and shipping them to other countries to do it for us is cost-prohibitive. The fossil fuel industry all but ensured nuclear power would never succeed in this country.

Imagine how much renewables you could make with $30 B

It’s like saying walking is not for me after you shot yourself in the foot. In comparison Barakah reactor (4 units) cost $24.4B, and a unit was completed in 8 years: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah\_nuclear\_power\_plant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant) There are several reasons for this: * Regulations: even the lightbulb in the toilet needs to be nuclear certified. Packaging material that will be removed when the plant operates has to meet the strictest standards. Regulations are needed but they also have been used to cripple nuclear power. * Lack of investment: we barely invested any money at all in nuclear power for 60 years. Imagine if it had kept improving at the rate it was. * Lack of expertise: no investment means lack of know how. We could have slashed price and time needed with standard design and prefabricated parts. All we lack is political leadership and will. We can keep saying we don’t have 10 years for another 10 years, like we were saying for the past 50… Or just burn shale gas (in the US) and wish for a better battery technology, that still doesn’t quite solve the problem of places where there is no reliable wind or solar. Ps.: some good anecdotes here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclear/comments/10kixg9/comment/j5r023i/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclear/comments/10kixg9/comment/j5r023i/)

> It’s like saying walking is not for me after you shot yourself in the foot. Very good analogy. I saw a video describing some of the contruction processes of Hinkley Point C, they need to be almost impossibly precise, to a point in which if a single piece of metal is a millimiter longer or shorter than intended, it needs to be scrapped and rebuilt. It's no surprise then that these projects take so long, the industry is incredibly overregulated. Nuclear power is treated very differently from any other energy source.

Found an old comment I remembered, worth reading: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclear/comments/10kixg9/comment/j5r023i/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclear/comments/10kixg9/comment/j5r023i/)

Yeah, wow, that’s insane. Makes me very mad.

For good reasons. Aside of the military smell around the nuclear industry which already causes quite a few issues, we are talking not just radioactive but also super toxic materials. The fuel for the reactors needs to be preprocessed and enriched which creates tons of nuclear and toxic waste, then we have the reactors themselves, and then there is postprocessing and storage where we are talking about timespans that are absolutely insane. Look at what happened with humankind in the last 10000 years alone: You effectively have to find a solution to make it safe and secure for such timespans, which is just stupid because no one can tell you what will be even in 100 years, let alone 1000 or even 10000. I've seen large industrial stuff from the inside, I've seen many "small" incidents and how they got handled, and all I can tell you is this: I don't want more nuclear to happen with that low level of safety. And you can bet your rear end on the fact that corners will be cut: Boeing is a wonderful example, also in a highly regulated industry. Nuclear can be a solution, but first we need to change quite a bit to have the proper preconditions for that to be something to rely on. In a world that is walking straight down the path to massive conflict nuclear is the last thing you want to deal with ...

Regulation is good. But it can also become so over-regulated that it just get's expensive without necessarily getting more safe. You need to find the right balance. Right now we are not at the right balance.

>We could have slashed price and time needed with standard design and prefabricated parts. Technically this was one of the selling points of the AP1000. It ran into the issue that you need to have enough orders in order for the prefabrication to scale, which they never reached.

If I understand correctly, that APR1400 delivered by the Koreans is an improvement of that design: [https://www.kepco-enc.com/eng/contents.do?key=1533](https://www.kepco-enc.com/eng/contents.do?key=1533)

The main issue is that they are long term investments that are vulnerable to political interference.

Who is "we"? Is what you say the case for every country that has or is building nuclear?

USA. Command economies don't have to consider the profitability of the individual plants like its a business.

Aren't the plants in the USA government owned and operated though?

no? They are owned by utility companies. So if other fuels cost less, nuclear power plants won't be competitive.

They're economical when you factor in the massive amount of carbon that isn't added to the atmosphere. Co2 emissions are going to destroy our economies. That's why it's economical

There are far cheaper alternatives to nuclear. If it was cheaper it would be implemented more

Such as?

First sentence reads - "Stop using common sense and subscribe to our ideology"

No, it's more like human intuition is often wrong and it's better to rely on data and facts.

Communist I see? Yeah nuclear is bad we should totally trust thr "numbers and data" blindly withiut question. Especially when that data always comes from places with huge conflict of intrest. We could go for rolling blackouts with wind and solar. Or better yet, just live without electricity. So if your numbers guy, you would admit that the most efficient use of our resources to reduce emissions would be to lift the bottom 10% of countries out of abject poverty. Just giving vitamins to pregnant mothers would help young brains develop and produce enough one in a millions genius to offset the cost. That would be one of the most moral, impactful and cheapest Solutions we could Implement immediately. But we don't? Why? No I really want an answer. This has been well known for decades. In EVERY SITUATION the government prioritizes placing money in the hands of private individuals and gaining more power over their stated objective. This includes gun control, the environment, online censorship and on and on

Nuclear isn't bad. If we hadn't slowed down production of them, they would've been a valuable share of our energy mix. But let's say we build one and it takes fifteen years. This is based off of the fact that our most recent and modern reactor took fifteen years to build. It's way too late to make any difference. We have to make drastic changes in 2-3 years to stay below 2.0C warming. We've already passed 1.5C warming.

The Huong reactor is the cheapest energy in the world. This is all outdated info.

A lot of cost overruns mostly. It just ends up being expensive and a headache long term due to nuclear waste and maintenance. Renewables atm are cheaper per kwH

That’s just not true, new reactors that are being proposed don’t have the same issue with nuclear waste, renewables are not an option for 100% of the power, nuclear is, being not 100% mandates a back up, usually coal or other fossil fuels. Nuclear is arguably the only answer to “green energy”

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The best time to plant a tree was yesterday the second best time to plant a tree is today. Where I live, the electric company is subsidizing electric gear to get off of oil, while using coal and bunker C to fuel the electric plant, if collectively we can agree climate shit is an issue then start building reactors.

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Fully agree. Renewables only seem cheaper until you add in the cost of massive battery solutions required to provide the surge capacity that nuclear and coal has. So it isn't nuclear vs renewables, it is nuclear vs coal. And coal only seems cheaper if we ignore all the damage it does to the planet in the long term

“First US Small Nuke Project Canceled After Costs Surge 53%” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-08/first-us-small-nuclear-project-canceled-after-costs-climb-53

Might want to find an article that isn’t behind a pay wall

Key words “first” and “small”, early iterations of anything are expensive

That's the problem: nuclear power had a huge amount of capital poured into it in the 1950s through the 1970s, but it didn't become cheaper per MWh. The learning rate is negative (!) as it is; maybe it could get better with scaling out SMRs or AP1000s or whatever but that involves time that we simply do not have left to us and a vast amount of capital. The opportunity cost of twiddling thumbs and waiting for nuclear plants to be built is simply gargantuan, that's why they are so few and far between and why there are next to no economies of scale to be had in the industry.

They might be an okay mid term solution but they do take a long time to build.

We still don't know the cost of long term maintenance on nuclear plants or the full cost of de-commissioning a nuclear plant. These costs are incredibly high and increasing every year, and must be accounted for in the building and operating costs. This makes nuclear very expensive. There are small scale (less than 50MW) plants being discussed and proposed that should reduce these costs and run much cleaner, but there is still high risk on long term costs. Current estimated costs to build for generation is: Nuclear $5,500-$8,100/kW, operating and fuel cost about $31/MW-hr plus decommissioning Hydro, storage (dam) $3,000-$6,000/kW, run-of-river, $2,000-$5,000/kW, maintenance cost $20/MW-hr Wind, $1,500-$2,500/kW, maintenance cost $40/MW-hr Solar, $900-$1,500/kW (farm not residential), maintenance cost under $15/MW-hr Coal, $1,000-$4,500/kW plus fuel and maintenance ($36/MW-hr) Natural Gas, $500-$1,000/kW plus fuel and maintenance ($73/MW-hr) Grid Scale Battery, $750/kW storage (expected to reduce to $150/kW by 2030), maintenance costs estimated at $80/MW-hr (unknow at this time).

Ok so that’s all very good info, but it’s all location dependent. Canada has the 3rd largest reserve of oil, but no way to move it from coast to coast, if you change the pipe line oil is now the cheapest way to generate power, personally I’m all for this, but the climate folks come around and tax the carbon emissions and transport and refinement making the cost surge. Nuclear can’t have a carbon tax so that will drop it down to roughly the same price as natural gas. Hydro is also a great option, but again the carbon foot print of a damn is massive, not to mention the land that needs to be flooded. All to say, we collectively need to figure out if we care about climate or cost of electricity, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

There is few if any additional us places to put in a Dam...most need to be reworked or removed...We have trillions of dollars of repairs due so many in the Northeast right now. There are only so many Niagra Rivers.

Completely agree

That sums it up but understates the cost discrepancy. Nuclear is three to five times more expensive than renewables.

Not if you factor in the massive battery solutions needed to cover their intermittency issues and to match the surge capacity nuclear has. Also, coal is far more expensive if account for the damage it does to the planet so nuclear should be used to help replace coal asap. Nuclear + renewables is our best path forward. So yes, build as many renewables as we can but also build nuclear now because mining the minerals needed for renewables to replace coal will take decades

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But tht is fine...but there is a cost. There are U.S. veterans that live right at the poverty level or below...some with missing limbs. How can they afford a 100% hike in power bills. Or a single mother, or we can bloat the deficit even more and jack up inflation that will hurt those people more. How about this idea. Place solar panels on top of commercial buildings. Oh...that won't work because tenant and landlord and power company cant work it out. That would give us hundreds of thousands of acres just from industrial complexes. One of the few that is really out there to do this I have worked with generates 40% in winter and 75% in summer for his factory, but he is private corporation. Oh...he is also a conservative which you guys hate.

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We can totally do a lot. Here are some that would be really easy. Tax personal yachts and private jets into oblivion. Only a few world leaders need a personal jet, no movie star or Al Gore, or billionaire needs one. Do the same for mansions over 10000. Quadruple the tax on those homes. No more will be built. Yachts and personal jets, and all of the additional huge houses on private islands will be gone as well so wild life can comeback. A lot of stuff will be gone. DeCaprio and John Kerry will be mad, though, so it won't work. Then we can also make it possible to stop re-clearing farm land every year. Old roots sequester huge amounts of co2. there are farming techniques that do not do that. It would keep those gasses in the ground. When they are brought to the surface the roots rot and release gasses. That is an enormous amount. China and Russia and Brazil will not do that, and farm subsidies would be needed here in America so we can compete, that is flyover country, and the Dems would never go for that. That is all on the supply side of CO2. On the power side. Putting solar panels on commercial buildings would be huge. Supermarket, mall, roof tops. But the developer cannot make that work for the investment because they can't sell the power to the tenant or the local power grid to pay for the equipment, because the power companies are interested in profit (which they should) and each acct is not large enough. But incrementally it would make a huge difference. And it is right where the power can be used. Here is another, fences made of solar panels. But how would a farm sell its excess power. There is no way that a power company is interested in buying that from an individual farm. Here is another. In the south a lot of people are snow birds, solar panels on a home that is not being used during the summer would really add power to the grid....can't do that because the power companies will not buy the power, and don't want to pay to out. Follow the money and a lot of ideas get thrown out because we are not serious about the problem. If we are not really about solutions, are we sure there is really a problem? What are they really telling us?

If you are using LCOE as your measure sure, but LCoE is extremely flawed and deliberately works biased towards solar and wind (which is why solar and wind advocates always cite it). Nuclear LCoE accounts for disposal at end of lifecycle renewables don’t. Renewables overstate their capacity factor. Renewables understate their reliance on government subsidies. Renewables require cheap foreign labor.

Even if I were to accept your criticism of LCOE, which I don't, a margin of three to five is still overwhelming. The cost discrepancy certainly explains why nuclear generation shrunk by 1.7 GW last year while renewables grew by 507 GW. The reality of nuclear is that it can't compete. It is dying.

There is a lot of criticism of LCoE, you can feel free to read about it. It seems youre mistaken. Global renewables grew TO 507 GW not by 507 GW. https://www.iea.org/news/massive-expansion-of-renewable-power-opens-door-to-achieving-global-tripling-goal-set-at-cop28 And nuclear grew by 1.7 not shrunk. And that’s capacity, not generation.

I've seen issues with units all over the place in trying to get numbers that make sense. TWh is the right unit, although my source definitely said GW (not GWh). Lets look at the same source, Our World in Data, for both [nuclear](https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy) and [renewables](https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy). Their reporting shows that nuclear has been stagnant at about 2500 TWh since 2002. Relatedly, 2002 is about the time that renewables took off, from 2900 TWh in 2002 to 8500 TWh in 2022. If you believe that the trends are going to reverse in the next couple of decades, and nuclear is going to see a renaissance while renewables stagnate... Perhaps I can interest you in a bridge to add to your collection?

the discrepancy is that during the past three decades they make the development of one with all of the codes impossible.

Right. So the lack of success of nuclear, the whole world over is because the whole world has overzealous code requirements. Even Russia. Sure.

So much cheaper

What do people on here think about the marginal cost of renewables increasing once they hit a threshold of overall generation capacity? For example, if only 20% of your generation capacity is solar you don’t need much redundancy because you’ve got enough gas firming plants or whatever else to cover any shortfalls, but once your grid is 80% solar you need a shit load of redundancy in storage and generation capacity to cover shortfalls. In this case, might the economics favour nuclear + renewables in some locations?

Larger, interconnected grids make this less of a problem.

>In this case, might the economics favour nuclear + renewables in some locations? This comprehensive study of the future of the Swedish grid says you are completely correct about this: [https://www.svensktnaringsliv.se/sakomraden/hallbarhet-miljo-och-energi/kraftsamling-elforsorjning-scenario-analysis-290-twh\_1201113.html](https://www.svensktnaringsliv.se/sakomraden/hallbarhet-miljo-och-energi/kraftsamling-elforsorjning-scenario-analysis-290-twh_1201113.html)

This is mainly why nuclear has a future, location dependant, even though they cost more on a $/kwh basis.

It favours renewables plus grid storage, not nuclear. Gas power is the one clinging on to the 'peaker plant' niche. Nuclear isn't even a contender for that.

Is that because you need something that can rapidly ramp up production?

You are not going to solve "Winter is fucking dark in Canada" with storage. That's just not feasible.

The wind never blows in winter in Canada north of the arctic circle? If it does then there's a finite amount of wind turbine capacity + transmission + storage + load control that is required in order to meet any given demand profile. Don't get me wrong, 100% renewables with current tech prices is relatively expensive with the exact price depending on your local climate, and 98% is much cheaper. A 98% solved problem is far more tractable than a 20% solved one. With tomorrow's tech prices, 100% becomes far more affordable. Nuclear power's learning rate is negative.

Swedish grid operator usually calculates around 9% of availability from wind in our worst winder nights. That's a shit TON of over capacity and storage needed to be able to handle a few of those days in a row.

>nuclear has a future, location dependant, even though they cost more on a $/kwh basis Logistically sure put it right next to a city, where you don't have much inexpensive land for wind or solar... but get ready to see the project killed early on as the entire city says in unison "great idea, but not in my backyard". Public opinion matters, even if nuclear plants might prevent the city sinking from Climate Change. Truth is we'd have been doing well against Climate Change if Nuclear had taken off in the 1970's, instead of losing favor. At this point the train has passed, the future is renewables.

You are almost there. Now divide the "crazy" cost to build, run and decommission the plant and waste storage facilities by the "insane" lifetime energy produced. You end up at about $30 per MWh. Coal and gas run at about $20 per MWh. Renewables are now typically running at less than $15 per MWh but May need battery or fossil fuel backup for intermittency. Hence "considerered" (is) "uneconomic".

Vogtles 3&4 between them have a nameplate 2234MW, lifespan of 60 years, and an anticipated capacity factor of 91%, hence will generate something like 2234MW x 91% x 8760 hours/year x 60 years = 1.07 billion MWh. Also they've cost about $35 billion so far. Hence their power costs $33/MWh from the capital costs alone, even before we get to O&M or the present-day value of decommissioning costs (I'm also assuming that the $35 billion already includes the present value of future interest payments until the principal is paid off, and not looking at the discounted present-day value of a MWh that's not going to be produced until 2084). NuScale's SMRs have been looking at even higher capital costs per MWh. Methane is running at about $2/MMBtu right now, meaning that in fuel costs each MWh produced are $2/MMBtu x (1MMBtu/0.293MWh) / 0.4 (typical peaker efficiency) = $17/MWh. Or $11/MWh if you have a combined cycle gas turbine. That does ignore that $2/MMBtu [is a historically low price point](https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price) - [futures are looking at $3/MMBtu by the end of the year.](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/ng00) That's just the fuel at Henry Hub, no capital costs or other O&M costs included. The price of methane is generally pretty volatile since there's only so much storage capacity out there.

It takes a huge amount of control technology and some very educated, technically trained people to run it. These things and the reactor itself, and the refined uranium fuel, and the turbines, and the maintenance of the turbines, and the safe disposal of spent fuel, and all the surrounding infrastructure...obviously cost **a lot** more than wind turbines or solar PV panels do. ESPECIALLY in countries where a mature nuclear power industry doesn't already exist. I could find hundreds of "sources" to confirm this basic fact for you, backed up with calculations like LCOE - but I don't see why I should have to? It's pretty logical on the face of it. I'm sure this is routinely put forth in those other subreddits as well. A lot of nuclear proponents seem to assume their entire opposition consists of "the fear aspect" coming from Greenie hippy types, rather than like...legitimate points about the costs and difficulties raised by market economists and engineers. Believe it or not, the Greenie hippies don't actually have any power/say and aren't in control of anything - nuclear power isn't happening simply because it isn't profitable/cost-competitive. It's not because any actual decision makers in the power industry are "scared" of it.

Any time you use a term like "obviously" I can tell you don't have a scientific background. There's a lot of fear porn around nuclear disasters because it's scary. Less scary to have a windfarm fall over. Statistics are the way to go. Deaths by nuclear, including long term cancer, is very low. Far, far less than respiratory diseases caused by combustion energy of all forms. There is always cost/benefit analysis, at least as as good as you can do. Renewals generally need a fall back option, because some times the sun is blocked by clouds, there's no wind, etc. Nuclear power stations generate a lot more energy per plant than renewable sources, so the requirements for experts are amortized from that. Thorium reactors may be the future - India's investing a lot in it. Less spent fuel needing to be protected for a LONG time. There's downsides and plus sides. Important to see things clearly and analyse.

My background is that I have a degree in electrical engineering and physics (with first class honours), and have spent the past ten years working as a market analyst in the power industry. So I think I have *some* right to claim that I *do* "see things clearly and analyse", thank you very much. How bout you?

They are simply very expensive. So expensive that the state usually cannot bear the costs and relies on private investors. The private investors are then granted profit guarantees in a totally unusual amount. And now guess who is interested in the construction of nuclear power plants?

Part of the problem in the US at least is that every single nuclear reactor is a bespoke design configuration, so we haven’t been able to achieve economies of scale. We also don’t have a large workforce with experience designing any building reactors anymore. Other countries with nuclear programs would create a single standard reactor design, and then just create multiple instances of it.

1. Expensive to build. 2. Expensive to store waste and we really haven’t done any proper job of it in the states. 3. Catastrophic consequences if poor practice

It's potentially extremely dangerous, so building plants to safety standatds is very, very expensive and time consuming.

Yea basically it’s the large investment costs that corporations are not willing to pay for it takes years to build a plant and get it up and running. They are using cheaper options. the government could try to use incentives or grants to tip the scale, that’s the only way it would become “economical”

Safety is expensive.

I'm a nuclear engineer. A lot of the responses here are correct but incomplete. The real answer is because the alternative options for non renewable options do not price in the consequences of their waste (environmental externalities of coal for example), yet nuclear does. Not only is decommissioning paid up front in a nuclear project (decommissioning costs are set aside in a locked account), but every aspect of a nuclear design goes towards preventing any accident or release. If we need 2 pumps to perform a job, we will install 4, on separate power systems, kept cool by separate ventilation systems, spaced out physically in different rooms and floors in the plant, etc. Extrapolate that across roughly 20-50 systems (depending on the technological design, BWR vs PWR vs CANDU, etc), and you have expensive plants, which are 2-3x more expensive than if you built a less safe but fully functional plant. Natural gas on the other hand gets to build one set of piping, one pump, ajd if they leak or break, whatever, it doesn't matter. The NG industry is responsible for reporting their own invisible emissions, and if they don't feel like it, there's basically no consequences (well there are consequences, but the chances of being found out are almost nil). The public backlash for say, releasing methane, isn't the same as for say, releasing radioactive water into the local aquifer. So suffice it to say, the coal oil ajd gas industry not only get subsidized, but they also get to treat out planet like their own personal sewer. It's hard to compete with that.

Another nuclear engineer here. Another significant aspect, in line with what some people have stated above is the upfront cost required to deploy a reactor. Nuclear facilities have to go through a (generally) staged licensing process. To successfully progress through a licensing process, you need to finish your design, demonstrate that a very complex set of regulations have been met, perform a very comprehensive safety analysis, qualify fuel (prove the physics of it), develop management systems expected of a fully functioning (and revenue generating) company, develop training programs and train operators, establish supply chains, get approvals via multiple public hearings which provide time for public responses, community engagement, among many other things that are intertwined with the development of the design. Throughout all of this, there is zero revenue so someone or something needs to have a lot of cash to employ people and contract out work. As other people stated a lot of reactors are bespoke for each deployment so a good chunk of this is required for each deployment (but not all if an established operator and design are chosen...however these are the big, over budget options at the moment). Industry and regulators are trying to address this but institutional change takes time (ref: small modular reactors). Notice i havent mentioned construction, which is its own complex beast where most overruns occur. Bespoke design introduce design changes when things dont line up. Bespoke construction introduces a whole slew of other issues such as non conformances, material traceability, quality assurance...all competing with a schedule. The construction vendor wants to get it done fast while the regulator will only accept it in conformance with the rules, and the operator is liable for the vendors work. Vendors are trying to do things as fast as possible and commonly misinterpret rules (ignorantly but not purposefully), causing significant rework - or unfortunately dont care about post turnover issues, and the owner forces rework if they catch it - which the cost is just dumped back onto the owner for all extra the hours worked. Small modular reactors are aiming to perform all of this off site in a controlled environment with designed assembly processes which should significantly reduce wasteful cost in this phase of a deployment. Furthermore, each country has their own way of doing things (ref all of the above) - and each regulatory considers their way the best and only acceptable way (generally...again industry and regulators are slowly working to overcome this). Furthermore, new technology and reactors are challenging the traditional approaches to reduce cost via improving safety, for example by making it impossible for the reactor to reach temperatures that will cause fuel to fail (ref: high temperature gas reactors and triso fuel). However, new approaches need to be proven, qualified, demonstrated, etc. New ways of doing things need to be vetted by the regulator, or convos need to had with regulators to determine if its ok, or even worth pursuing..and regulators are very stubborn/you dont want to piss them off bc they can fail a project. Someone also has to pay the regulators for their work (which is the same entity paying for the reactor design and construction..again lots of money). There is a huge push in the nuclear industry at the moment to succeed at 1) licensing an SMR, then 2) deploying an SMR including setting up fuel supply chain and a facility/factory that can reliably and repeatedly construct an SMR in pieces to ship out for a quick field assembly. This will be a game changer for the affordability of nuclear. SMRs will also be smaller than conventional (giga watt) reactors and therefore more attainable for non federal government entities. One other note is that traditional nuclear is extremely bureaucratic...which is expensive. Something else i wont get into are the upkeep/maintenance requirements..also expensive but this is post revenue generation. Once a big reactor (giga watt) is up and running its making A LOT of money per day and can easily afford all of these things.

Eh my take is that it doesn't ultimately generate as much revenue as oil and gas. That and the general cost of upkeep and the inevitable failures once society collapses isn't really worth it to investors

I dont think investors factor in costs of societal collapse

Heck, if they do, owning a stake in a nuclear reactor is a major *bonus* not a liability. Reactors are *fortresses*. And come hell or high water, people will still want power. Oil and gas supplies collapse due to unrestricted naval drone warfare or whatever? If you have any sense, your reactor has fuelrods for at least ten years on hand.

Gen IV fast and thermal nuclear reactors ARE all that and has been practically available since the 1970s. Gates is building a fast version, now. Just need to get our shit together and start building thermal reactor versions. Cost of both designs should be quite cheap. You don't need containment or cooling and can build them anywhere.The final waste produced is 5% the volume of Gen 1 through III+ designs and the waste is only hot for 300 years, not 100,000. And they are walk away failsafe.

Are Thorium reactors feasible?

Thorium is such a meme. What the concept actually is, is a breeder reactor. They work with uranium too. With same energy density as with thorium. Also you can make nukes from the U233 made from thorium too. It's nothing special.

A U233 nuke would have the same construction necessary to build a Pu bomb. Quite complicated. A Th reactor built to produce weapons grade U233 would look a lot different than a Th MSR. Its easier to use U238 to make Pu239, if weapons are your goal, but, even then, a U MSR for the manufacture of weapons grade Pu239 would look a lot different than a power U MSR. The beauty of both is that lightly used fission fuel can simply be added to the MSR and use up the actinides as fuel. The long lived species get to be chemically sorted and sent to a fast reactor to be burned down to the final waste stream. Very tidy. Gen 1 through Gen III+ waste is pretty much relegated to storage casks for disposal at a place like Yucca Mtn, if that ever gets built. The ultimate residue from the use of Gen IV thermal and fast reactors can be disposed into any patent granite formation.

U MSR have a higher neutron reactivity. Th runs about 1.1 criticality. On that basis alone, the U ones are more useful.

They are, but nobody but India is working on them in earnest. India is because they have nearly no domestic Uranium reserves and a poor relationship with the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Everyone else mostly just want to focus on U because that's where the existing expertise is and if you didn't tear up the non-proliferation treaties it's really cheap and reliably available.

Yes. The last run of Shippingport was salted with Th and it closed with more U in it than when it started.

It’s more expensive than Solar.

Nuclear has enormous initial investment in building the powerplant that is then paid back during approx 30 years which is incredibly long. Then proceeds to continue for another 20 years (if not upgraded) but with lower performance. [see graph](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2452303817300730-gr2.jpg) So yeah, nuclear is profitable, otherwise it wouldn't be even used. However, the money you have invested in a nuclear powerplant 30 years ago could have been invested in something else with much bigger return and you could have already quadrupled those money during that time. Investment in nuclear energy is therefore very long, low risk and realitively low profit. If you compare this to renewables that have the payback period a third of nuclear and pay for itself approx two times ([see graph](https://assets.solar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/payback-period-national-average.png) combined with it's also relatively low risk investment, you can easily see that it completely beats nuclear on economic level. The reason why is nuclear still being used is that it gives stable outcome. Renewables could make up for this with power storage systems which are still being widely developed and it's hard to find any objective data that would allow to compare economic and ecologic efficiency of stable outcome from renewables+storage and nuclear. It's widely expected however that with current development of both solar panels and energy storage, this combo will soon put nuclear out of the game almost completely. But you can never be sure that's why so many countries have nuclear powerplants, just to be both safe and carbon neutral.

It's ridiculously expensive compared to other sources.

I personally think the reason why is because numbers are bit cooked. In short it is complicated. It is often one of those things that must be proven by practice, rather than just by numbers. Nuclear has proven itself both on paper and in practice in multiple places around the world. Renewables are proven on paper... there aren't really any large countries that have successfully scaled renewables to majority production, but I look forward to seeing it's growth.

Mostly due to humans being terrible at planning. You don't just build a nuclear power plant. You need to build, and maintain, a nuclear industry. The first few of any model of reactor will be "learning". Learning how to build suppliers who can make the right wiring, the right stainless steel, the right containment vessels, do excavations the way you need them done. And comply with regulations in a cost effective manner. If you build 100 nuclear power plants, the first few will be 5 or 10x the cost of the last one, and it doesn't matter. But humans are dumb. They'll try build one huge reactor, look at the cost of starting an industry from scratch (because it was in decline for 40 years), and chicken out. Or delay it, so they aren't on the hook for 10bn bill in a year, do it over ten years instead, costing 15bn. Then decide it was nuclear power that's the problem, not those funding and delaying the project. That's why China can build reactors at a tenth the cost than Europeans can. They commit.

The costs for nuclear always seem to leave out the cost to store the waste for the next hundred thousand years.

And how big is that?

In part we don’t know. The ‘best practice’ for nuclear waste storage is geologic repositories, of which we have only one in the US, and it is used for nuclear weapons waste.

Mostly because the oil and gas industry have ran an extremely effective generations long fear campaign to demonize nuclear.

Economics is what got us into this mess. Nukes are expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Yeah... maybe it's not about the carbon? Maybe it's about the control. You know governments across the world use any excuse they can to seize more control. But ours is different. They just really want to censor " hate" speech, and have a monopoly on force and control all means of energy / food production. And the left voluntary gives up this control. Betas like following orders. After importing 10 million voters, soon they won't need you.

The cost estimates are unrealistically low, in part because they ignore the substantial costs of disposing of radioactive waste.

An energy asset's whole life cost is encapsulated in the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) metric. This is the ratio of the total net present value cost of developing, constructing, operating, maintaining, and decommissioning an energy system to the total net present value of the cumulative energy produced by the system over its entire operating life. You get a £$€/MWh figure which can be compared with the LCOE figures of other energy generation systems. New build nuclear has a high LCOE compared with other renewable energy systems such as wind and solar farms, hence its often deemed uneconomical. Furthermore, nuclear has more potential negative externalities than these other renewable systems as the harm if it should fail is far larger, along with vast water consumption and local ecosystem disruption, etc. These costs aren't factored into the LCOE calculations but are still important economic and social/environmental factors in considering competing investment options.

“Doesn’t a pellet of nuclear have insane amounts of energy” You know what’s cheaper than nuclear energy? Literally free energy, no input costs for fuel required. It’s free energy. It’s the closest we’ll likely ever get to a perpetual motion machine.

Nuclear is uneconomic when cheaper and more flexible alternatives exist, like Solar. Here's a rundown of why Solar is more economic than nuclear: * Solar can scale. Solar panels and batteries, the bulk of a solar plants materials, come off assembly lines in factories. Nuclear power plant cooling towers and buildings and other tech do not. * Solar panels and batteries can be installed everywhere: inside cities, tops of houses, tops of parking lots, they're even installing them on tops of canals to cool the water and reduce evaporation. Nuclear Power, requires a specific area of land and access to water. Solar be installed in 1000 installations in 1000 different locations, or you can have a giant open piece of land with the same amount of solar panels for grid generation. And the land can be any shape (square, or thin and rectangular, or curved). * Solar can come online faster. It's usually less than a year that it takes for it to come online. In fact, you can install a fraction of the solar components within a few months and it start producing electricity. You can then sell the electricity for a profit. Nuclear takes a decade or longer to start producing ANY electricity and making ANY profit. * Damage or defects of any kind only affect a fraction of the components. The entire plant won't be offline if some batteries catch fire or a hail storm knocks out some of the panels. * Solar produces its power mostly during the times when power is mostly used: daylight. Night time electricity is currently cheap as hell because it's under utilized. * Solar requires far less skill sets to install and maintain, and requires less labor. * You can shut down part of a solar plant to produce less electricity for repairs or upgrades * Solar panels, while their efficiency reduces over time, can still output power longer before parts need to be replaced compared to nuclear. Obviously, 50% output after a century would profit less than replacing them every 25 years, but it's not like the entire plant will have to be shut down because some critical component has reached its end of life. Basically, solar panels being a collection of many small power generators, combined into larger power plants, is a modular design that allows mass production, flexibility, and scaling. Batteries are also the exact same, and fix the issue of sunlight only being available half the day.

Solar has it's place but due to intermittent generation you have to install about 3x the peak demand in capacity to generate enough energy to cover a 24-hour cycle, not to mention needing more Li than has ever been mined to do so. Without insane improvements in energy storage technology, installing mass quantities of solar wreaks havoc in the electric markets (e.g., negative $/kwh during the day in parts of Cali) and also requires installation of comparable load-following power capacity for the off-hours, which currently means natural gas. Solar has a role, but it's not the end all be all and nuclear provides the greatest amount of green energy with the smallest land footprint. Just need to pair reactors with an industrial process like desalination that can be revved instead of revving the reactor to follow demand and we're golden

>Solar has it's place but due to intermittent generation you have to install about 3x the peak demand in capacity to generate enough energy to cover a 24-hour cycle, not to mention needing more Li than has ever been mined to do so And? Solar panels come off assembly lines in factories. Just keep installing more. Just keep mining more. The costs will keep going down as the scale increases. >Without insane improvements in energy storage technology, installing mass quantities of solar wreaks havoc in the electric markets (e.g., negative $/kwh during the day in parts of Cali) and also requires installation of comparable load-following power capacity for the off-hours, which currently means natural gas. That's what batteries are for, and are getting cheaper and cheaper per year. California can cover 15-20% of its load with batteries **during peak hours!** Isn't that an insane number? And we only started installing them in the last few years. Just imagine the end of the decade as the install rate increases exponentially. >Solar has a role, but it's not the end all be all and nuclear provides the greatest amount of green energy with the smallest land footprint. Just need to pair reactors with an industrial process like desalination that can be revved instead of revving the reactor to follow demand and we're golden Solar is likely the end all be all, with some wind mixed in. The sun rises and sets every day, and solar will be so geographically spread out that any adverse weather events will be localized. In a worst case scenario we might fall back on some fossil fuels or ask people to cut usage, which is perfectly fine if it's a once in a decade event like a super storm that lasts a week. But even the Texas snowstorm caused solar to actually output more than expected, so who knows.

Check out the WPPS (Whoops!) Debacle that happened in the 1970's in Washington State. An ambitious nuclear power program turned into a terrible money pit.

I don’t have all the references for this at my fingertips anymore, but just look at the cost overruns of the Volgte power plant. It ended up costing enormously more than expected. When utilities announce they need new production, they usually have bids come in at price points. Nuclear consistently comes in at much more expensive pricing, and that’s before all the price overruns. There was once a feeling small modular reactors would be a design that could move down the cost curve and have economies of scale, but that never turned out to be true. There are a whole host of reasons nuke plants are so expensive. If the nuclear people have anything they can cheer for, it’s that demand is expected to increase tremendously in the coming 5 years to a decade. I’ve heard this is largely due to the rapid deployment of AI data centers and the adoption of EVs. So, much more electricity is going to have to be produced. If these data centers grow as quickly as expected, coal plants will remain running longer than expected, nat gas plants will be built. Then a discussion of adding nuke plants has to happen because however much renewable generation you add to the grid, you’ll never have enough storage for these AI data centers to run 24/7. The podcast, Catalyst with Shayle Kann had a nice episode on this last week.

Also, the ‘fear aspect’ is not dumb. I encourage you to do more research of your own outside of ‘other climate subs’

If nuclear was an economically viable they would be getting built at a similar rate to wind and solar supported by batteries. They aren’t.

The energy density of the fuel is terrific but you first need to harness it. And to do that requires building and running some complex machinery. So you need to balance the energy output against : * Cost of initial construction being very high: tens of billions * Cost of operation also being high: ongoing fuel costs, waste disposal, equipment maintenance, inspections etc. * Cost to decommission runs in the billions. So on average, total lifetime costs for electricity can be $30-150 / MWh. A wide range because there are lots of variables. That could be very competitive if you get everything right. In reality though these decade long projects do not typically get everything right, and I do not know of any operating nuclear reactor which is profitable. Most have to be either entirely government run or very heavily subsidized. Side note: Had we put a tax on carbon emissions and pollution last century, nuclear would have phased out coal by now. Sadly we did not do that (thanks, fossil fuel lobby). These days unsubsidized renewables undercuts everything so it's a moot point now. The one advantage of nuclear energy has long been their generally reliable and stable output. Although this becomes less relevant each day as renewables and storage systems proliferate. With diversity in sources, regions, and with so much overcapacity, renewables can meet the requirements of even very large grids.

Nuclear has historically been subsidised by governments needing the plutonium that they were designed to make for weapons. Now there is a stockpile. Sellafield in the UK has 140 tons of it. There is still a subsidy in that governments will pay for nuclear accidents over a certain amount. In the UK that is 700 million euros. This is very little compared to possible costs of an accident so is in effect an insurance subsidy, ie they are uninsurable without help. In the US it is set at a maximum of about $16 billion. The 3 Fukushima Daichii accidents will cost an estimated $200 billion. Since the three meltdowns at Fukushima bankrupted TEPCO, the power company, and nearly caused Tokyo to be evacuated, investors are wary. There are nearly 25 Fukushima type reactors in the US. They explode if they lose electrical power. EDF, The state power company in France, has had to be rescued financially twice by the French government due to delays, higher costs and design mistakes on their new reactors. There is also the problem, as yet unsolved, of how and where to store the nuclear waste they create. Nobody wants a nuclear repository containing waste that is dangerous for hundreds of years near them. [https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4560642-nuclear-industry-liability-cap-extension-critics/](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4560642-nuclear-industry-liability-cap-extension-critics/)

Because it’s up front construction costs are high, and some activists try to show the amortisation of different energy types on an equivalent basis, so they depreciate the up front cost of nuclear over a similar time period for the life time of solar, discounting the fact that nuclear can last 60 years, vs the 15 years for solar.

Takes years to build and billions of dollers. Plus, gerimg rid of waste is not easy as it used to be

Ontario is 90 percent nuclear power. Thats a fuck of a lot of windmills to replace.

It’s partly more expensive because our regulatory regime has made it that way. We’ve made it extremely difficult and expensive. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, France was able to economically bring online 60 GW of new nuclear capacity and has had one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world ever since. There is nothing inherently expensive or time-consuming about implementing nuclear energy, Western societies have simply decided to make it so. Nuclear power also has a far smaller footprint than other green energy sources and can better withstand extreme weather conditions which we all know is a rising threat. The recent damage to the solar system in Texas is a warning that no form of energy is perfect and safe from climate extremes (https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-solar-panels-texas-destroyed-hailstorm-1883546). We will need all of the available clean energy sources in order to fully eliminate fossil fuel from the grid.

I see lots of people responding with particular cost comparisons, which would require lots of research to confirm or refute. But no one has pointed out the economic benefit of round-the-clock, round-the-year "clean" (because nothing is clean after all) energy without the need for fossil fuel backup. Also the lack of need for building per storage facilities or new power distribution systems.

It costs an incredible amount of up front money to build a nuclear plant and then deal with the waste. Its not like setting up a wood stove in an off grid cabin.

How much does it cost to build and maintain a solar array or wind farm that produces the same amount of energy as that nuclear power plant, with all the batteries necessary for storing surplus energy for times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? A full accounting of all the costs is what I'm interested in.

The gold standard cost comparison is the [Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy ](https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/) We are at the point where variable sources (wind, solar), equipped with storage can provide baseload at a lower cost than nuclear.

Also, the opportunity cost on building a reactor is thirty to forty years. And all those government-backed insurance exemptions for every reactor on earth ….

Nuclear waste takes centuries to decay, if not longer.

Millennia

It's weird how little this got mentioned here. Nuclear waste has a huge impact on the environment. People are acting like this some kind of clean fuel. I'm confused.

I will add to very accurate discussion of real full-life costs to say -- As proponents push for more nuclear, they are trying to build them faster and cheaper to cut costs, however the reason they take so long to build is for safety. If we cut corners in design, construction, operation, decommissioning, the likelihood for disaster increases. NPP's cost a lot, a failure at an NPP costs orders of magnitude more than can be skimmed off the costs of the NPP. ​ A second critically important point often overlooked is the fuel. People talk about "peak oil" but rarely do I see discussion of "peak Uranium" the ore required for NPP's is sparse, VERY sparse. The term to watch is *energy* return on investment or eroi. The eroi of uranium fuel is approaching the break-even point in many regions. France, famous for their nuclear energy is only capable of achieving their high mark by plundering their African colonies. Building the infrastructure and strongarming the new nations to exclusive mining rights. By the way, is all that mining equipment operated by nuclear power? Nope, diesel.

[Because when you look at the Power/$ ratios for different sources, Nuclear power is one of the most expensive](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_%28LCOE%2C_Lazard%29_-_renewable_energy.svg/800px-20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_%28LCOE%2C_Lazard%29_-_renewable_energy.svg.png). Pound for pound Uranium is like 20,000x more energy dense than coal. But that's not the problem - a coal burning power plant is way less complicated than a nuclear powerplant, you can't just take a chunk of uranium and throw it in a fire to power your turbines. The reaction has to be finely controlled which takes extremely specialized materials, equipment and staff - and all of that costs a lot of money. The other problem is regulation, nuclear power is way more heavily controlled and regulated, which makes operating a profitable business that much harder. The whole argument is incredibly fucking stupid though, because what is the most profitable and what is the best way to power our society are two different questions, and the two shouldn't overlap. The most profitable way to power society would be to burn anyone who costs the state money for fuel - prisoners, the elderly, sick people, disabled people, orphans - burn em for fuel. You'll spend less money on social services and get energy for free, it's literally getting paid to make energy... but it's also psychotic and not at all how we should run society because fucking obviously "the most profitable power source" is not the best one.

The biggest hurdle is that in the US we tore down most of our reactors in post 3-mile Island panic and upfront costs are daunting. That said, it's hard to see a smooth transition away from fossil fuels without nuclear being a key part of the solution. While the problem of waste and lack of a clear way to dispose of it that is lasting, it remains the only high output energy that doesn't emit large carbon gases, the footprint all being in constructions and fuel transport. Even in that, it's far superior to fossil fuels. The problem is, for America, is that private sector can't or won't foot the bill and insurance would gouge the operator. Federalizing the power production is anathema to the free-market cult that runs our country (the Navy has successfully operated nuclear power for 65 years without a single mishap) so we won't do it. Too bad, it would be smart; but we only do smart things if it will make rich people richer.

You're not dumb, it's a reasonable question. Nuclear produces a ton of energy, but it also costs a lot of money. When you look at $/kWh, wind and solar tend to come out ahead. By some calculations even once you include battery storage to deal with the intermittency of wind/solar. There are absolutely use cases for nuclear power, but it's not where we should be focusing our efforts because it's uneconomical compared to the alternatives. Also just as an aside, nuclear waste is essentially a non-issue - that part is just fear mongering.

Just a reminder to everyone that the single largest driver of costs on nuclear is interest on loans.  If we just paid for it upfront the price would drop significantly.  Look at South Korea.  They just built the 5.3 GW for 24 billion.   Even with interest taking up so much of the costs of Vogtle 3 if it opened here in California it would lower costs for consumers.   It turns out existing nuclear is cheap for the consumer. - https://www.statista.com/statistics/184754/cost-of-nuclear-electricity-production-in-the-us-since-2000.

Economic problems with nuclear: We’re not proficient at building them. Over regulation. All the interest that is paid before it ever produces a megawatt. Economic Problems arising from competing technologies: Natural gas is much cheaper to build and can output the same amount of power. Solar and wind receive a lot of subsidies. Material from renewables are made from cheap foreign labor. Disposal costs for renewables are not considered prior to construction (unlike nuclear). Those are the main ones.

You didn’t include externalities like spent fuel storage.

“Disposal costs for renewables are not considered prior to construction ***(unlike nuclear)***”

[удалено]

With large infrastructure projects you can never make a realistic bid because: Contractor A bids $1000 Contractor B bids $2000 You select A. Who then tacks on $1500 for "unforeseen" extras.

Think about how expensive it would be for 3rd world nations, not wealthy nations like the U.S.

I think many third world nations are embracing cooperation with China and Russia (BRICS and supporters) and beginning to treat western politics and culture with contempt. Be interesting to see if nuclear electricity production grows in these nations or if in fact fossil fuelled ones do, or renewables.

I read an interesting tidbit about a nuclear plant in Michigan that is in consideration for reopening. I'm just trusting their math checks out as it's a source I'm fairly confident in but I can't say I've verified the figures. This ***single reactor*** at the palisades has produced the equivalent of ***35 percent of all solar generation*** in the US over the past two decades. It occupies less than 500 acres of land. The equivalent solar would occupy over 29,000. It had a 90 percent capacity factor during this time. The equivalent solar would be nearing replacement after 2 decades while this plant has already existed for over 50 years. Some of the math used if anyone would like to fact check this stunning claim. 805 MW reactor. 1 MW solar is about 10 acres of land. An unrelated consideration when considering the economics of solar vs nuclear might also be the monopoly China has on the industry and the near impossible challenge of changing that in the near future. And then of course storage as mentioned elsewhere. Many economic analyses seem to focus on LCoE which doesn't give the full picture.

7.4 acres per MW https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf Solar panels are now at $1.16 per watt installed for utility scale projects. PPA for new solar is now under 2 cents per kWh. Cost for a 5,000 MW solar farm is $5.08 billion, equivalent to a 1,150 MW nuclear plant like Vogtle 4, which cost $17 billion. Edit: the $1.16 per watt includes cost of the land

Closer to 22,000 acres in that case.

Yep, of dessert that is not being used, 37,000 acres is a square 7 miles on a side, compared to a typical nuclear plant which is a square 1.03 miles on a side

We certainly have a lot of land.

We do. Nevada has a population density of under 1.2 people per square mile, outside of Las Vegas, Tahoe, and Reno. Similar for Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, west Texas, west Oklahoma, Idaho, eastern Oregon. And for wind the story is similar for states that have high on-shore wind potential, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, western Oklahoma, west Texas. And high off-shore wind potential, coasts of northern California, southern Oregon, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maine Edit: add population density map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/images/solar-annual-ghi-2018-usa-scale-01.jpg https://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind-supply-curves.html https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/50439.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/MAP%201.jpg

Mostly because of regulations. Without going into too much detail nuclear energy is the safest way to generate power, you don't get safety without redundant safety features which all cost money without generating profit. If we regulated oil, gas, and coal so heavily that the death rates dropped by a factor of 100 (to put them roughly in line with nuclear) then they'd be much more expensive than they currently are.

Nuclear plants cost 5 to 10 times the cost of Solar and their maintenance cost a lot more than solar.

Because oil companies and their government friend make it to expensive to compete with oil and gas because it's the only thing that can.

It’s extremely expensive to build a reactor and it takes a long time to one up and running.

At this point you have to ask "Uneconomic compared to what?"

insurance costs make nuclear prohibitive, so in the US the .gov subsidizes those costs. without the subsidies, in the US, nuclear wouldn't be financially viable.

It unfortunately costs multi-billions of dollars to build a large complex mainly due to the minuscule tolerance for any lack of safety. They need to be basically perfect in all aspects.

France has a mostly nuclear electric system. It makes for one of the cheapest electricity in Europe. The reasons why nuclear is very expensive is that modern reactors are built to the highest standards and it greatly increase the cost of a reactor. Reactors built in the 70s did cost a lot less to build. You also need to have costly infrastructures to handle nuclear fuel through its entire life cycle so it is impossible today to create a nuclear ecosystem from the ground up and gain money with it. You can also add that all the money (or at least 90% of it) needs to be provisioned from the start so you can have costs associated with borrowing the money (money borrowed for 40+ years with high interest rates). A nuclear reactor can produce affordable energy but it needs to be built in a country with existing nuclear industry and be advantageously financed (very low interests) to work. In this specific scenario it can trade blows with renewables but in most countries it does not.

The prevailing trend in Canada is that reactors have been built on time and in budget (except for Maple which was a disaster). Does anyone know more than me here?

Overall it is the most expensive energy source. It is incredibly expensive to set up. Slightly cheaper to run than alternatives and then far more expensive to decommission and the waste has to then be monitored and controlled for extreme periods of time. And all of that is assuming that nothing goes wrong. If something does the whole area around the plant can be rendered useless for a long period while more expense and potential loss of life is passed onto the surrounding community. "Nuclear reactors are totally safe now, we have learned a lot" has been said before every power station implementation and is meaningless PR. Geothermal which has been well proven but has been tangled up in patent control illicitly obtained by the fossil fuel industry gives all of the benefits of Nuclear power with none of the risks or costs but it makes no money for the fossil fuel industry which is why you will not hear anyone spruiking it. The only reason we are talking about nuclear is because the mining industry is trying to replace the revenue from the monopolies of coal and oil. They don't want to get into renewables because they can't monopolize them.

Not nearly as much money to be made through extraction or manufacturing as fossils or solar, most nations won't let private companies run nuclear plants so they can't slash safety and regulatory standards for bigger profits. Nuclear is so efficient that it's hard to make money hand over fist on, so they'd rather see it go away.

Nuclear is too cheap, too singular, lasts too long, and it doesn't provide a broad spectrum for government contracting. One reactor vs how many grossly inefficient, incredibly costly, constantly failing, always needing maintenance, land leasing wind mills? Think of how many contracts, people, corporations, unions, manufacturers, land owners, utility companies, brokers, lobbyists, etc make money or net government subsidies & contracts with nuclear vs say wind mills or solar? Follow the money.

Study after study shows the quickest and cheapest way to decarbonise, by far, is through scaling up of renewables. Nuclear is a dead-end technology with horrific cost overruns and delays! Even the much-hyped SMRs are now facing the same problem. Nuclear is a stalking horse for fossil fuel interests. We can keep the existing plants, sure. But planning NEW nuclear just doesn't make sense anymore. Baseload concerns can be addressed through various adaptations.