[pfdietz]

Let's hear what the then-President of Exelon, at the time one of the largest nuclear operators in the US, had to say about that.

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4088

“The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.

[billytetrud]

I'm not sure why you think that Exelon didn't consider regulatory risk as one of the things that made it not make sense for them. It was certainly a large factor.

The idea that existing nuclear power plants are losing money because they aren't operationally competitive with oil and gas does not square with the facts. The total cost of running a nuclear plant is 30% less than oil and gas per kilowatt-hour. And if all our nuclear plants weren't 50 years old and saddled with massive overregulation, the operation and maintenance of a nuclear plant would probably be equivalent to running a fossil fueled power plant, which would cut ANOTHER 30% off the cost of nuclear because fuel costs of fossil fueled power plants are 4 times the cost of nuclear fuel per kwh.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html

And as for construction costs, you can see that the massive increase in construction costs in the early 60s and 70s was because regulation required enormous increases in staffing, which ballooned labor costs.

https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/

And even so a nuclear plant should be expected to be profitable as long as you can manage to operate it for long enough without the government shutting you down (one of the major regulatory risks I mentioned).

Nuclear power plants in the past generally took 7 years to build and pay off in 16-24 years. While a natural gas plant can be built in 2 years and pay off in 8 years. Nuclear power plants are so cost effective tho, that if you can manage to run it for 17 years, you'll make more money than running a natural gas plant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw

[pfdietz]

> I'm not sure why you think that Exelon didn't consider regulatory risk as one of the things that made it not make sense for them. It was certainly a large factor.

Who cares? That putative issue would be beating a dead horse. If it didn't make sense economically anyway, why worry about that?

> The idea that existing nuclear power plants are losing money because they aren't operationally competitive with oil and gas does not square with the facts.

Oil isn't in the picture (it's not used for any baseload power generation in the US, and precious little peaking). But gas is certainly an issue. There have been existing plants (not all of them, of course) that shut down because they could not make even an operating profit. TMI's other reactor was cash flow negative for six years before it was shut down, for example.

In any environment where existing plants are troubled, building new NPPs is obviously completely off the table economically. V. C. Summer was so out of the running it was better to write off the $9B spent so far on it than to complete it.

[PickledJesus]

Because the regulatory environment is different in different countries, and can be changed with political will? The US is particularly expensive: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/infrastructure-costs-nuclear-e... but it doesn't have to remain that way.

[billytetrud]

Sounds like you're ignoring my whole post. I guess this conversation is over then.

[pfdietz]

I'm ignoring your fantasizing, your wishful woulda-coulda-shoulda, and instead paying attention to what things actually cost. So, yes, the conversation is over.