[Joeri]

China and Russia do not build and run nuclear power plants at dramatically lower costs, despite having none of those handicaps.

Edit: Hmm, actually, I find wildly diverging LCOE numbers in different locations online. Some indicate they build at half the cost from France, while others say at a similar cost. So, if anyone knows which LCOE numbers are reliable please indicate.

[chrisco255]

Russia's economy is currently heavily dependent on oil exports, so there may at least be some incentive there to suppress it. China on the other hand, had quadrupled its nuclear power generation in the past 10 years (1).

(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/thebakersinstitute/2023/05/17/h...

[bell-cot]

> Russia's economy is currently heavily dependent on oil exports...

All the more reason for them to build nuclear plants. Every barrel of oil that their own economy doesn't need (because they have plenty of nuclear plants) is another barrel they can make money exporting. And if or when using oil becomes unfashionable, or their oil reserved start running low...then being recognized experts on how to build & run lots of safe, economical nuclear plants sounds pretty good, eh?

[zdragnar]

Nuclear competes with natural gas and coal, not oil.

Beyond powering the grid, there are myriad uses for oil that nuclear cannot substitute directly for- asphalt, plastic, nylon, even Aspirin (synthesized from benzene).

[chrisco255]

And yet the biggest use of petroleum by far is for transportation. Worldwide demand for petroleum would plunge 90+% if all cars were electric and nuclear was fully deployed.

[mcpackieh]

Uh, no. Only two thirds of petroleum used in America is used for transportation, and that includes all transportation. You cannot possibly get a 90+% reduction in petroleum use by electrifying all cars.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

[chrisco255]

So by that chart, a barrel of oil is basically 89% used to generate gasoline, distillate fuel oil (diesel), hydrocarbon gas, and jet fuel. That is to say, 89% is used for energy and 11% or less is used for plastic, asphault, and materials. That 27% industrial figure on the right chart includes things like propane production, which is mainly used as a heat source (nuclear could absolutely replace this).

Either way, if your economy is dependent on oil exports, whether you were to lose 2/3 of that or 9/10 of that business, you're going to be hurting, and you might not rush to refactor your economy around nuclear.

[pyrale]

From what I understand, Lazard's LCOE, which are quoted everywhere, mainly rely on US numbers. That means they probably are reliable for US situations.