[ephbit]

Seriously? This comparison of cost to a NPP is obviously flawed.

Why?

Because a NPP wouldn't be run just for backup but continuously. Let's assume the 1 GW fossil plant runs a mere 3 weeks per year. That's a capacity factor of 0.058 and it'd generate 504 GWh per year.

The NPP would run with a capacity factor of say 0.90 so at 1 GW it'd deliver 7.9 TWh.

That's a factor of 15.5 more electricity delivered than the fossil plant.

Consequently, to have the same cost/KWh, the NPP could cost 15.5 x $5M = $77.5M per year. Electricity cost would be: $0.01/KWh

I don't know your source for the operating costs of the oil plant, but I assume it's in USD.

According to [1] in the US, the NPPs generated electricity at a cost of (note how I didn't even pick the much lower number of 21 USD/MWh in recent years): 37 USD/MWh = 0.037 USD/KWh

Comparison

Fossil: $0.01/KWh

Nuclear: $0.037/KWh (or more recently $0.021/KWh)

So the cost wouldn't be dramatically higher with the nuclear plant and it'd still leave a huge margin to Swedish household electricity prices of > $0.20/KWh.

Also the nuclear plant would emit much less CO2 per KWh than the oil plant, and who knows how long we'll wait to see efuels be used for this purpose.

The point I wanted to make is not: "Backup plants have to be nuclear plants."

But rather: "As long as there is a certain base load on the grid, that's requested by consumers all year round (which will always be the case), it is a viable option to partially provide this with nuclear power plants."

And to me it makes more sense than what Germany is doing right now, basically replacing nuclear generation with a little bit of wind and lots of coal in the winter. Even if Germany had had double the wind generation in 2022, from Jan-Mar & Oct-Dec, renewables would only have delivered ~ 100 % of demand during 2 weeks. 2 weeks out of 26. They'll have to continue burning gas/coal for some time to come. Especially with progressing electrification and increasing demand.

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As to:

> .. if carbon prices ever becomes prohibitive:

CO2 prices are laughable and even the planned progression is. And with all the exceptions for big industry even more so.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184754/cost-of-nuclear-e...

[Gwypaas]

> Because a NPP wouldn't be run just for backup but continuously. Let's assume the 1 GW fossil plant runs a mere 3 weeks per year. That's a capacity factor of 0.058 and it'd generate 504 GWh per year.

But then the nuclear power needs dispatchable power to cover the gaps! Just like renewables do, while also getting undercut by renewables. Which means it is getting priced out of the market, because as you just said, the measly $5M a year to be in standby is laughable compared to nuclear costs.

That is why dispatchable plants are usually gas plants, low capital costs, high running costs.

> So the cost wouldn't be dramatically higher with the nuclear plant and it'd still leave a huge margin to Swedish household electricity prices of > $0.20/KWh.

That includes the transmission grid and energy tax, wholesale prices before the pandemic and gas crisis were $0.02-0.04/kWh. The Swedish prices are now back down to $0.04-0.08/kWh, mostly driven by gas prices in continental Europe.

> But rather: "As long as there is a certain base load on the grid, that's requested by consumers all year round (which will always be the case), it is a viable option to partially provide this with nuclear power plants."

Which will get priced out of the market every single time renewables can fill the need, which is easily above 70% of the time, add some hydro and we are easily above 95%.

It is extra telling that you use marginal costs of paid off plants. Of course we should run those as long as possible!

The costs for new built nuclear are $0.12 - 0.2/kWh. Do me a favor and compare that to the current whole sale prices in Sweden at the tail end of an energy crisis. Does that look favorably? Or do you suppose that a new built nuclear power plant will appear out of thin air? "It's cheap when it's done!!!!" Well, someone gotta pay to build it.

That measly $5M ain't gonna save you here!

Edit - A post appeared on the front page:

The duck in the room - the end of baseload

> And what do you do then with baseload plants? By their very nature, they are supposed never to stop generating… But what if they are no longer needed for 6, 8 or 12 hours every day for 6 to 9 months of the year? Some of the base load plants (like French nuclear) have some flexibility to vary their generation, but definitely not from 0 to 100% every day! And their economic model will be shot to pieces if they make no money whatsoever half, or even a quarter of the time.

https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/the-duck-in-the-room-the...

[ephbit]

> But then the nuclear power needs dispatchable power to cover the gaps! Just like renewables do, while also getting undercut by renewables.

Of course it does. But no, not "just like renewables do".

Why? Because unlike with wind (calm) and solar (clouds) where the gaps are not known months ahead, most of the (1.00 - 0.90 = 0.10) outage time of a nuclear plant will be known beforehand and planned for accordingly. Yes, even when the rivers are too warm or carry too little water, that'll be known quite some time beforehand.

If you don't see the difference there, you don't want to see it.

> Which means it is getting priced out of the market, ..

Let's see how long we're going to have to wait until we see France's NPPs being priced out of the market by wind/solar/gas in the winter. Because as long as these NPPs are being needed urgently some time of the year (which is mostly going to be winter), they might well be priced out of the market in summer or whenever there's lots of wind, but they'll still be kept running.

I think we're going to need quite some patience to witness France's NPPs being shut down and decommissioned for reasons other than safety/EOL.

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> That includes the transmission grid and energy tax, wholesale prices before the pandemic and gas crisis were $0.02-0.04/kWh. The Swedish prices are now back down to $0.04-0.08/kWh, mostly driven by gas prices in continental Europe.

Not sure if we're talking about the same prices here. I was referring to end consumer/household prices [1] (range € 0.17-0.24), not the prices at the commercial market.

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> Which will get priced out of the market every single time renewables can fill the need, which is easily above 70% of the time, add some hydro and we are easily above 95%.

The criterion for keeping a NPP ready to run likely isn't if the NPP is being priced out of the market for x < 100 % of time/year but rather 100 % plus safety margin. If officials can't guarantee enough electricity 100 % of time when they shut down a NPP, they won't do it (unless they're reckless).

As to "add some hydro" .. yeah, it's so easy. You just need to say the magic words and "poof", here's your dam and hydro powerplant.

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> It is extra telling that you use marginal costs of paid off plants. Of course we should run those as long as possible!

Agree. So maybe we were indeed writing past eachother.

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> The costs for new built nuclear are $0.12 - 0.2/kWh. Do me a favor and compare that to the current whole sale prices in Sweden at the tail end of an energy crisis. Does that look favorably?

It might not look favorable right now. I would not bet on electricity prices staying where they are. I'd rather bet on them catching up (at least to some degree) with nuclear over the next few years.

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From your linked article:

> Solar capacity is growing by leaps and bounds, and it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

That remains to be seen. One can already observe that in some cases fixed installations (on buildings) are prioritized to be mounted vertically (instead of at an optimum angle for noon), and facing not south but rather east and west to generate less electricity at noon and more in the morning/evening.

We'll be seeing more of that I guess.

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> if you have an easily accessible surplus of a highly useful resource (energy), can you find any use for it that can generate a profit? There is absolutely no doubt that the answer is yes. Storage and hydrogen are just the simplest, most centralized answers, but I have no doubt that entrepreneurs will find zillions of ways to use energy available, even if for short periods, to make something valuable of it.

The author doesn't seem to be versed with the hydrogen/electrolysis tech. If the "duck" at noon lasts for 5 hours that's 5/24 = 0.21, not a capacity factor to run almost any kind of industrial process economically where you need quite some capex to set it up.

Storing electricity is just difficult. Otherwise it'd have been solved in a cheap way for ages.

And just using gigantic amounts of energy when it's available isn't easy either. It means partially sacrificing other goals a person/business might want to achieve.

When there are more EVs, those might charge mostly during "duck" time. But that means you can't drive during that time. We'll see to what degree people are willing to plan their day around charging their EVs when they have lots of other plans and things to do.

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In case you didn't read the comments below the article by "Dan G", they contain good counter arguments to the author's points, thankfully the latter even admits this.

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[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/418124/electricity-price...