Print 75 comment(s) - last by HsiKai.. on Aug 18 at 1:55 PM

California is thinking green with solar, nuclear, and wind













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RE: Clarify, please
By JasonMick (blog) on 8/15/2008 1:18:53 PM , Rating: -1
Actually nuclear costs around $0.03-$0.07 in pure fuel costs plus the cost of operation. Adding in construction costs, maintenance, and safety expenses, over a standard plant life, costs are around $0.20 . This is quite reasonable and will surely decrease and more advanced construction techniques are applied.

Note these figures are rather conservative estimates. Some figures I've read have put the cost of nuclear power, with plant construction as high as $.67 per kwh, but I think in reality $0.20 is a far more realistic figure.

There is similar debate about the "true" cost of solar panels. Solar panel operators I've spoken to for the most part say their plants need little maintenance, so most of the cost is directly attributable to the cost of purchase and installation.

I'd say build away... nuclear and solar may be a bit more expensive now, but costs will come down and they're worth it!

RE: Clarify, please
By masher2 (blog) on 8/15/2008 1:29:29 PM , Rating: 4
Jason, I have no idea where you got figures showing nuclear and solar power to be roughly the same cost, but you couldn't be more wrong. Every single government and industry study ever done -- along with actual operating costs from real-world installations -- place solar from 3 to 5 times more expensive than nuclear. If energy storage is reqired for power at night, solar can become 10-30 times as expensive as nuclear.

Fuel costs for nuclear are nowhere near 7 cents Kw-h. This MIT study (which was criticized for numbers that came in substantially above other studies) places total costs, including fuel, O&M, construction costs, legal overhead, and decommission, at 6.7c kW-h:

The study also noted a few small changes which would reduce costs still further, down to 5.3c kW-h.

Furthermore, that study was done in 2003, when the industry average AF (availability factor) was 85%, and used an estimated plant lifetime of only 40 years. The current industry average AF is 90% (1/3 less downtime) and many plants are being certified for 60-year operating lifespans. This reduces costs still further.

RE: Clarify, please
By bhieb on 8/15/2008 1:38:03 PM , Rating: 4
Holy crap and actual outside link, instead of conjecture spewed about with no links to support it whatsoever. What a concept!

Undocumented Opinion <> News/Fact

RE: Clarify, please
By Solandri on 8/15/2008 3:13:22 PM , Rating: 2
Another link if you're interested. This one is in Euro cents so multiply by 1.25 which was the exchange rate back in 2006.

RE: Clarify, please
By FITCamaro on 8/15/2008 1:57:11 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah I was like "How can anyone think that the two are the same cost?"

Whats amazing to me is given the value of land in California, they're going to use a ton of it for solar plants putting out around 1/3 the power of the nuclear plant which will use far less land. It makes far more sense to just build 2 nuclear plants. The availability is far higher and the cost is cheaper. Plus you'd get more power.

RE: Clarify, please
By acejj26 on 8/15/2008 2:04:42 PM , Rating: 2
it's actually way less than 1/3 of the power of a nuclear plant. a modern reactor can be on the order of 1 GW with an availability factor of close to 1. on the other hand, this sprawling solar plant produces 0.25 GW with an availability factor of around 1/3, which means the nuclear power plant would be producing around 12 times the amount of power per day. that being said, your point remains. nuclear power is by far and away a better option than solar.

RE: Clarify, please
By AvidDailyTechie on 8/15/2008 5:43:11 PM , Rating: 2
I logged in for the first time in about a year to reply to your post.

As a student well into Nuclear Engineering curriculum I greatly appreciate this. I almost crapped my pants when I saw that some new solar panels would offer about the same price/kWh “when using the most modern technologies.” I thought we had come upon a solar cell revolution, but no, just another piece of misinformation about Nuclear Energy.

RE: Clarify, please
By masher2 (blog) on 8/15/2008 2:06:42 PM , Rating: 2
Also Jason, this report from actual operating costs from the the nuclear power industry itself, pegged costs at an astoundingly low 1.66 c/Kw-h for both fuel and maintenance. It excludes only capital expenditures such as plant construction/decomissioning costs.

Obviously capital costs are large, but the figure gives a lie to your notion that nuclear fuel costs run from 3-7 c/Kw-h.

RE: Clarify, please
By BladeVenom on 8/15/2008 3:52:16 PM , Rating: 2
Do any of your figures account for the legal and delays costs that will be caused from lawsuits by environmental groups?

RE: Clarify, please
By masher2 (blog) on 8/15/2008 4:22:01 PM , Rating: 2
The MIT study does. In fact, reducing the construction delays from such suits was one of the factors they considered which would reduce the cost from 6.7c to 5.3c Kw-h.

RE: Clarify, please
By Jedi2155 on 8/15/2008 5:10:18 PM , Rating: 2
Were there any government subsidies taken into account or is there even any government subsidies in nuclear industry at this point?

RE: Clarify, please
By HsiKai on 8/15/2008 5:31:27 PM , Rating: 2
See some of my links below in the thread "Government Subsidies."

Generally speaking there don't seem to be any "new subsidies" since there haven't been any new plants constructed, however there are significant R&D and tax subsidies, but those don't normally influence the immediate cost of electricity nor even go towards it.

RE: Clarify, please
By foolsgambit11 on 8/15/2008 6:40:40 PM , Rating: 2
Don't have Adobe Acrobat Reader? The cost section of the summary report analyzes actual costs for the entire cycle (in 2002 dollars), and comes to 6.7 cents/kWe-hr. If we could drop construction costs 25%, it would become 5.5 cents. (That would imply construction is about 4.8 cents/kWe-hr over a 40 year lifespan, making all other costs 1.9 cents/kWe-hr. I'm sure that's an oversimplification, though). Additionally, shaving a year off of construction times (4 years instead of 5) could save another .2 cents, realistic improvements to operating and maintenance costs would save another .2 cents, and reducing the cost of capital to gas/coal would shave off a whopping .9 cents/kWe-hr. I'll admit, I have no idea what that means, but I suspect anything having to do with gas and coal costs has not gone the way they'd like since 2002. The grand total, should all improvement be realized, is 4.2 cents/kWe-hr

Finally, they suggest a 1.7 cents/kWe-hr government tax credit be given to nuclear to make it competitive with coal and gas plants, which equates to $70/tonne of carbon prevented compared to coal, or $160/tonne of carbon prevented compared to natural gas.

It's interesting to contrast the European method of promoting green tech versus the American model. In the States, we give credits to power suppliers who are green; in Europe they tax plants that are dirty. The results are similar (not identical, of course). We lose revenue, they gain revenue.

RE: Clarify, please
By masher2 (blog) on 8/15/2008 2:24:56 PM , Rating: 2
> "Actually nuclear costs around $0.03-$0.07 in pure fuel costs "

$0.005/Kw-h is the actual figure for pure fuel costs, taken straight from 2007 data:

You were only off by a factor of 1,400%.

RE: Clarify, please
By Solandri on 8/15/2008 3:23:32 PM , Rating: 3
Looks like he (or his source) dropped a zero after the decimal. Easy mistake to make, especially if the person has a preconceived notion they want the data to fit.

