[TheOtherHobbes]

If nuclear used fewer raw materials nuke plants wouldn't be huge - huge - capital projects, wouldn't take years to come online, and wouldn't have huge cleanup costs.

If the money spent on nukes had been spent on renewables and on developing storage we wouldn't have these problems.

This was predictable decades ago.

The reality is that nukes are a political solution to a political problem. It's nice that they sometimes generate energy for a while, but there is no sense in which they've ever been a rational economic choice.

[mathiasgredal]

Nuclear uses roughly an order of magnitude fewer ressources than wind, without factoring in storage: https://imgur.com/a/Kc2h21O.

Source: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/03/f34/quadrenn... (page 390)

[Schroedingersat]

You can't use a report from 2015 citing data from 2010 as indicative of a technology that has dropped in cost 10-fold and nearly doubled capacity factor since then.

Additionally the overwhelming majority of that material is foundation and tower. Both of which can be reused by replacing the nacelle.

[mathiasgredal]

The Vestas V112-3MW from 2009 has a 42% capacity factor. I don’t know any modern wind turbines that has a capacity factor of 80%.

https://www.thewindpower.net/turbine_en_413_vestas_v112-3000...

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

[Schroedingersat]

And this makes the point. A 2009 model turbine is a huge improvement on a retrospective on past history of plants that had been running for some time in 2010

https://www.vestas.com/content/dam/vestas-com/global/en/sust...

A V112 has 40% lower materials per TWh (or ~30% for the lower wind configuration) than your report without considering modular foundations which would drop it by another factor of 3 or being able to reuse the foundation and tower at least once which would drop it by another 2.

On the other end you're not considering Uranium mining or enrichment facilities or waste storage or that the metals are all recyclable immediately rather than half of them being LLW or SLIW.

[mathiasgredal]

Average capacity factor is basically an irrelevant metric. What is more important is the lowest seasonal capacity factor, since seasonal power storage doesn’t make sense. For the UK this is 25% for offshore wind: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/bd2bb73a-ef25-4c4b...

This means that we need to overbuild wind by >200%, to have the necessary power year round.

Solar doesn’t work, since it is basically useless in the northern hemisphere during winter, and it needs a lot of battery storage during the night.

There is also a week in February where there is no wind, which will require green methane production and gas peakers(edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute)

Nuclear can work year round with load following using a design like the Natrium reactor. This design also uses a lot less concrete than traditional NPP’s.

[Schroedingersat]

Nice train you've got the goalposts on there.

The wind and solar capacity factors are anti-correlated.

There are areas in france where the december average is >2.6kWh/d. At 54kg/kWp a modern panel on a lightweight racking system gets this works out to 1800t/TWh and it's almost all glass you can build the same net wattage now for half the price and then use the money you save to replace in 30 years (or 50 if you take real world degradation rather than predicted). Having to recycle some glass once to decarbonize now ranther than in 20 years is a reasonable tradeoff for halving the costs. The gas plants are dirt cheap and that much solar would easily power enough electrolysis to fill your february gap during the 11 months of the year when it produces far more. The electrolysers will be needed in either case for ammonia, shipping, and SAF.

If we're invoking technology that doesn't exist and costs several times more, just use something that does exist and costs several times more like a CSP plant and an HVDC cable.

Additionally for the vast majority of the world which is in transmission range of somewhere arid, CSP is strictly cheaper than the easy part of a Natrium reactor.

[Manuel_D]

Nuclear plants use very little raw materials relative to the amount of power the produce. When built at scale, nuclear plants have been delivered at prices around $1-2 billion dollars per GW of capacity.

The cheapest form of carbon-free energy really depends on what the objective is: small reductions in a mostly fossil-fuel grid? Or total replacement of fossil fuels? Renewables are great for the former: you can throw up some solar panels or wind turbines and reduce a chunk of fossil fuels use. But once you try to start delivering significant portions of the energy grid through intermittent sources the surplus energy starts to get wasted, and the effectiveness drops.

[Schroedingersat]

Nuclear is roughly equal to wind on a modular foundation if you account for the fact that the tower and foundation outlast the nacelle. The "$2/GW" nuclear reactors were all built by state run agencies with opaque budgets and in France's, Japan's, and South Korea's cases have all proved wildly unreliable in addition to having opaque public subsidy on top of the very large visible subsidies in the supply chain and finance. If you think it's possible to match the prices China reports that megaprojects cost, I'd like to see any examples of projects in the global north with auditable accounting matching their figures in hydro, or highways, or rail, or ports or... basically anything.

In mediocre to good areas with something like the PEG racking system solar uses about the same raw material than nuclear already and it's almost all sand. By the time a new nuke came online this will be far less.

Both are recyclable. 12 hour storage adds negligible mass and can easily cover daily variation.

Intermittent power without storage can easily feed dispatchable loads like EV charging, chemical feedstock and heat production. These vastly exceed non-dispatchable electricity and can be used for virtual seasonal storage.

There are only a small handful of areas best served by nuclear, and most of them have hydro or nuclear already.

There's a narrow niche where nuclear is optimal:

Grid electricity between 50% and 80% penetration in the 50% of areas where hybrid CSP + e-fuel backup isn't better. This niche is rapidly shrinking and could easily be gone by the time one is built. More carbon can be removed faster and with fewer resources by throwing renewables at the other 10 or so TW of fossil fuels currently being burnt. Until those resources are committed, new nuclear just delays things.

[Manuel_D]

> Nuclear is roughly equal to wind on a modular foundation if you account for the fact that the tower and foundation outlast the nacelle.

Except intermittent sources also need storage. They also need long distance transmission lines to bring power from remote areas of generation to places of demand (whereas you can just place nuclear plants next to areas of demand).

This is a common pattern in renewables discussion: laser focus on generation and ignoring the fact that wind and solar have storage and transmission requirements that other energy sources don't have.

> The "$2/GW" nuclear reactors were all built by state run agencies with opaque budgets

Nope, do more research. These were all built in the US with public cost history.

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

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

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

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

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Plant

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

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

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

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucie_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

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

> 12 hour storage adds negligible mass and can easily cover daily variation

12 hours of storage for the world is 30,000 GWh. This is 70-100 times the global battery production output. "Negligible mass" is going to have to see a hundredfold increase in som extraction industries. By comparison, nuclear already produces 20% of the US's electricity hand about a tenth of the world's electricity. A tenfold increase is much more manageable than a hundredfold increase.

> Intermittent power without storage can easily feed dispatchable loads like EV charging, chemical feedstock and heat production. These vastly exceed non-dispatchable electricity and can be used for virtual seasonal storage.

If you're going to tell chemical industries and metallurgy plants that they'll have to cease production for part of the year when renewables are producing lower than average output, then that has to be factored into your costs. If the price of steel and ammonia goes up because they can't run their plants as usual, then that cost is ultimately borne by consumers. You can't just use load shifting as part of the plan and ignore the costs of load shifting. "Virtual seasonal storage" amounts to "tell industries to shut off during winter". And no, heat production is not non-dispatchable unless you're okay with people freezing to death.

[Schroedingersat]

> Except intermittent sources also need storage. They also need long distance transmission lines to bring power from remote areas of generation to places of demand

You are correct. They also need storage like nuclear for non-dispatchable loads in areas without good hydro or CSP resource.

For the remainder your battery production figures are off by at least a factor of two. China delivered 280GWh in H1 2022 at the peak of a market crunch in an industry that is growing at 50% YoY. There's no compelling reason to think the 5TWh/yr of factories under construction won't be completed on time as the renewable industry has been consistently over-delivering for a decade.

Your scaling for nuclear is new capacity. Which is around 5GW/yr right now. It has to increase tenfold to match the last year of new renewable generation, or fifteenfold to match the new capacity weighted installation.

> (whereas you can just place nuclear plants next to areas of demand).

Incorrect. Seismic activity, ground, water, temperature, security and many other concerns limit siting severely.

> If the price of steel and ammonia goes up because they can't run their plants as usual, then that cost is ultimately borne by consumers. You can't just use load shifting as part of the plan and ignore the costs of load shifting. "Virtual seasonal storage" amounts to "tell industries to shut off during winter". And no, heat production is not non-dispatchable unless you're okay with people freezing to death.

Hydrogen or ammonia continue to exist after you make them. Simply overprovision your $300/kW electrolyser slightly and use chemical energy as your buffer. This has the added advantage of being an emergency or low CF backup at minimal extra cost.

[Manuel_D]

> They also need storage like nuclear for non-dispatchable loads in areas without good hydro or CSP resource.

Really? Show me all the storage facilities France built when they have >80% of their electricity coming from nuclear power? It'll be challenging for you to do so, since no such storage facilities were built. Nuclear power can be modulated. Plants try not to do this since they want to run at 100% as much as they can to make money, but there is no storage requirement for nuclear power.

> Incorrect. Seismic activity, ground, water, temperature, security and many other concerns limit siting severely.

All of which has been solved already. Seismically active areas have nuclear plants both in the US and around the world. Water is a non-issue since places with large energy use tend to be cities, which are populated by humans which also need water. Nuclear plants can also use wastewater or seawater (like the Palo Verde plant), it doesn't have to be potable water.

> Hydrogen or ammonia continue to exist after you make them. Simply overprovision your $300/kW electrolyser slightly and use chemical energy as your buffer. This has the added advantage of being an emergency or low CF backup at minimal extra cost.

Then show me the price history of commercial ammonia grid storage operators. Well, first you'll have to wait for such a facility to come online because none are operational. Proponents of intermittent sources keep hoping that some silver bullet will make storage nearly-free, since it's the only way to make wind and solar viable as primary sources of energy. But thus far, no silver bullet has come and it's unclear if it ever will.

Unlike nuclear which has historical precedence of being built at scale and cheaply. If we had kept building nuclear plant at the same rate as we did in the 60s and 70s we'd have a completely decarbonized grid by now. We have no such historical precedence building grid storage.

[Schroedingersat]

> Really? Show me all the storage facilities France built when they have >80% of their electricity coming from nuclear power?

It's called Europe. To make their nuclear less unaffordable they use other countries as seasonal and diurnal storage.

> Unlike nuclear which has historical precedence of being built at scale and cheaply

Where? Show a single privately run Gen III or later commercial plant funded without government enforced monopoly, free loans, or direct funding that comes in at an affordable price.

> Unlike nuclear which has historical precedence of being built at scale and cheaply. If we had kept building nuclear plant at the same rate as we did in the 60s and 70s we'd have a completely decarbonized grid by now. We have no such historical precedence building grid storage.

No, there'd be no viable Uranium in the ground after about 1980.

[Schroedingersat]

> Nope, do more research. These were all built in the US with public cost history.

On top of not including the cost of finance, liabity, or upstream supply chain which was provided by state military projects. The first one you linked had repeated safety violations and maintenance issues and has no record if how much they cost to remedy. The quoted price leads here:

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6259203

And is in nominal dollars not 1986 dollars. $763 million 1966 dollars is $7 billion, not $3 billion. Add in the cost of finance and you get $10-14 billion or around $7/watt for an unsafe, inefficient plant with corrupt management. And this was not a greenfield site, it already had work for unit 1.

Do more research.

Every pro nuclear claim turns out to be a lie when examined even with the slightest scrutiny. All of them.

[Manuel_D]

Your article studies plants built after the nuclear boom, which of course leads to higher prices. See the cluster of plants built cheaply starting in the mid 60s [1]? That's the nuclear boom. Your article studies plants still in construction at the end of 1986, which is when the nuclear boom tapered off following thee mile island. Deliberately or not you're pulling a slight of hand here by shifting the time frame. But in the end, this helps reinforce my point: nuclear is expensive when built in small numbers as your study demonstrates, and cheaper when built at scale as the study I'll link below explains.

Finance liability is a fancy word for debt: this has nothing to do with construction costs, and everything to do with financing models. You're right, nuclear would be even cheaper if better financing was done. Upstream supply chain is accounted for by the downstream purchase costs. This is like saying wind turbine costs don't include the costs of mining copper for the dynamos. That cost is in included when the wind turbine manufacturer pays for copper coils.

Research on nuclear's cost history overwhelmingly finds that costs are lower when built at scale: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...

1. https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03014215163001...

> Every pro nuclear claim turns out to be a lie when examined even with the slightest scrutiny. All of them.

Well, you sound like you're engaging with this topic in well-adjusted and unbiased manner!

[Schroedingersat]

The costs you quoted were from a source linked on wiki talking about the first reactor on your list.

My source is a primary source from the DOE for that source.

It included every reactor built before 1986 including Palisades which your article lists as $650/kWe, but it has down as $118 million or $1300/kWe in 2022 $ excluding retrofit for subsequent safety standards. With capacity factor that's $1700/kW net for an inefficient and unsafe design before major safety standards were written.

If your downstream product is a byproduct of a military project that was built for a different purpose then you cannot claim it includes costs. If the US military needed a supply of worn out giant bearings, provided wind turbine designs that cost trillions for free, and was selling turbine blades and nacelles at low prices it would also be a subsidy.

Whatever your opinion on finance, it is included in renewable projects which are fully privately funded.

If your hypothesis about construction booms was true, then the price minimum would be either reactors started in 1982 when construction was at its peak, or if you want to claim TMI as a boogeyman, then reactors finished just before it.

More likely it is:

a) an artefact of whatever part of your chain of references didn't catch the bit in the DOE report that says it is in nominal dollars which depresses prices of early reactors by a factor of two, and

b) The fact that nuclear has a strong causal mechanism for negative learning rate. Each new reactor teaches you new things that can go wrong which you then have to retrofit to old reactors. This only appears in the sticker price if they are still under construction.

Taking arkansas one unit 2. It was $577m for 858MW at 80% CF.

Inflation was quite substantial, so we can't answer without knowing what rate it was disbursed and at what interest during construction, but it is between $4500 and $6500 per kW net. Right inline with new reactors once cost of finance is included.

US nuclear costs and always has cost around $10-12/W using modern accounting terminology with a few outliers and a few early plants before the negative learning kicked in. You just taught me this by having me cursorially examine your lie. Thankyou.

Edit: actually it might have gone down a bit with after TMI. As there might be different accounting on later reports.

[Schroedingersat]

Heating is trivially dispatchable over 24 hours. Put some sand, brick or water between what you want to heat and the heat source. This method has been used for thkusands of years.

Scale it up a bit and you can do it seasonally.