[dpierce9]

The new Summer plant reactors in SC were abandoned during construction after spending 9B. The units were nameplate rated at 2200 MW. Even at the point of abandonment, the cost of a MW was over 4 million. Solar is 700k to 1MM per MW. Wind is about 1.3MM per MW. Even adjusting for capacity factors nukes are more than twice as expensive per unit of capacity. Neither solar nor wind require difficult to produce fuel, produce nuclear waste, require waste heat reservoirs, or require years long complex and expensive decommissioning (which in the US is paid as a surcharge on electricity used). Solar or wind do have subsidies but nuclear gets a subsidy in the form of the Gov backstopping meltdown insurance (the current pooled industry meltdown insurance fund is like 20B, Japan has spent 200B+ cleaning up Fukushima). You don’t have to be anti-nuclear to think these huge projects that we can’t build don’t make a ton of economic sense at the outset (even factoring in the more desirable production characteristics which can be offset by more storage and/or overbuilding wind and solar capacity). In theory modular nuclear will solve some of these issues but in theory practice and theory are the same thing but in practice they aren’t.

[dzhiurgis]

You need to compare levelized cost of kwh tho

[dpierce9]

Definitely. Solar and wind take it on that metric too (though I don’t have those in front of me). Add to that it isn’t a trivial calculation if you include project risk. What is the LCOE of the Summer reactors? Does that HUgE failure impact the LCOE of the class?