[booi]

$5.6B actually sounds like a good deal. It outputs 2GW+ of power. While solar is definitely cheaper for 2GW of power, you still need batteries for when the sun is down. So you probably need approximately 30GWh of batteries to just replace this one power plant. The batteries alone would cost nearly $7B of grid-scale batteries that must be replaced every 20 years.

Ignoring the fact that the nuclear plant already exists, this still seems like the right way to go mostly because it's impossible to build this nuclear power plant for $16B in the US anymore (or so it seems).

[boznz]

Due to increased regulation etc you cannot just translate 1985 $, £ or Euro to a 2026 one. There is an actual example in the UK Hinkley Point C current estimate $43b, (£35b) where as sizewell B commissioned in 1987 was $3.2b billion (£2b) or about $7b in todays $. This is probably the worst example but makes the point.

[throwaway2037]

    > $5.6B actually sounds like a good deal. It outputs 2GW+ of power. 

I don't understand. Are you talking about 1985 dollars of 2026 dollars?

After some research, I learned that thermal powerplants (coal/gas/oil) completed in 1985 cost about 0.8B to 1.2B USD per GW. 5.6B USD in 1985 for 2GW sounds like a terrible price -- at least twice the cost.

[connicpu]

Nuclear is high capex low opex. It needs such a miniscule amount of fissile material per year, whereas purchasing coal is an eternal ongoing cost.

Just to put some numbers on it, a 1GW conventional reactor consumes about 25 tonnes of enriched uranium per year, while a 1GW coal plant goes through 3.3 million tonnes of coal.

[Chico75]

Price is not the only factor, paying double for energy that does not contribute to global warming and other health issues seems more reasonable.

[lucb1e]

> a terrible price -- at least twice the cost

I'd double my electricity bill if that means saving somewhere between 3 and 9 million lives per year[1], better health for myself and the people around me, and that's completely ignoring climate change benefits where prevention both saves money and reduces deaths/displacement/poverty in the long term

Either short-term solution is fine (nuclear or full renewable), but we're currently doing everything piecemeal. Plopping down a few big reactors in 20 years while people (in countries without salt planes, at least) are still trying to get permits for the remaining reasonable wind turbine and pumped hydro locations... it just feels like seven-mile boots for the energy transition

If we can make seven-mile steps by plopping down wind/solar plus the required storage in gigawatt quantities, all the better, but that hasn't been happening. We'll run out of uranium eventually but, for now, such reactors buy time. Of course, this discussion has been happening for so long that the "it takes too long to build" naysayers will get their way soon, even at the slow pace we're currently going full renewable at. It's now or never, we need to commit to an option, no matter which one

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#/media/File:How-...

[saltyoldman]

7B for the first set of batts.

Then 7B in 2046 money which is probably $15 today.

[hnav]

assuming 300 days/year, 1c/kwh and ignoring opex that's $150m worth of electricity per year.