[subtenante]

> Cost

I'm interested in seeing data backing this. It is taking real wind turbines/PV panels lifetime and real production? Nuclear reactors have a lifetime of 60 years, wind turbines/PV panels less than that.

> Security

Some GenIV reactor designs also should be helping with that.

[epistasis]

I really like Lazard's summaries of LCOE (levelized cost of energy), which includes the cost throughout the lifetime of a generation source:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

They also have a separate analysis for the cost of energy storage by various means, which is also awesome.

Given the long lifetime of nuclear plants, the huge upfront costs for a single project, and the rapidly plunging costs for renewables and storage, nuclear seems like a risky financial proposition, personally, and I think most utilities and investors appear to agree. I think that by 2030, PV solar and storage will be cheaper than nuclear, as well as being far more dispatchable and decentralized.

I wish we had built a lot more back in the 80s, as that would have cut off so much of our emissions over the past 30 years.

[neaden]

I agree, there was a window when building lots of Nuclear reactors would have been a good idea and it's a shame that we didn't take advantage of it. But with the rapid fall in solar I think that window has closed.

[legulere]

Hinkley point C has a guaranteed strike price of £92.50/MWh + inflation [1]. That is 10.223 Eurocent per kWh, without any inflation adjustment yet and with the recent fall of the Pound compared to the Euro. The last time free standing photovoltaic installations got a fixed price in Germany it was 8.55 Eurocent per kWh in August 2015 [2]

Gen IV reactors certainly have some better traits compared with conventional nuclear power, however they might not be good enough, are far off and lots of problems might only be detected when you actually put them into use (like it happened with the THTR-300).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... [2]: https://www.solarwirtschaft.de/fileadmin/media/pdf/Verguetun...

[kalleboo]

Also is it taking the nuclear reactor's real lifetime into account? Our current crop of reactors were only planned to run for 40 years but their lifetimes keep getting get extended (one article I found said that they expect some existing reactors to run for 80 years)

Edit: does it also take into account the massive investments into grid storage and smart grid upgrades that are going to be needed for solar/wind-based grids to handle the volatility?

[petre]

> I'm interested in seeing data backing this.

Also check out capacity factors for different types of power plants. Nuclear and geothermal plants are operated as base load plants and have among the highest capacity factors. Solar photovoltaic is basically just sitting around, yet it's still useful as a distributed grid-interactive power source (on your roof for example).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

[abefetterman]

There's a really great interactive nuclear energy cost calculator produced by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-fuel-cycle-cost-calculator

[M_Grey]

It depends... pebble beds were supposed to be the future, then it turned out the fuel spheres were unworkable in a number of ways.

[subtenante]

There are other designs. Molten salts for instances, still promising.

[M_Grey]

Sure, or a lead-bismuth eutectic, but there are always more issues to be solved, and the maintenance costs and risks are through the roof.

[subtenante]

Sure, it does not cost much to say that. Cost and risks are a relative thing, and 'through the roof' is subjective. You have to compare with the other possibilities. No energy is clean. With PV, the cost of treatment of wastes (silicon tetrachoride for instance[1]) and the risks associated with their pollution if not treated are also a problem, especially if we want to make PV substantially more used than it is now in proportion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03...

[M_Grey]

Comparing the nature of industrial waste such as that produced in the production of PV panels, and nuclear waste which is a security, environmental, and political nightmare is unfair and a bit dishonest.

[subtenante]

I'm glad I encountered a honesty oracle!