Comment by NewJazz
Comment by NewJazz 7 hours ago
Emphasis on current market conditions. Relations with uranium mining countries and environmental opposition to uranium mining could shift conditions.
Comment by NewJazz 7 hours ago
Emphasis on current market conditions. Relations with uranium mining countries and environmental opposition to uranium mining could shift conditions.
The cost of nuclear power is almost entirely capex and financing, not opex. Uranium input cost for nuclear power plants is 0.5c/kWh. With breeders you can divide that by about 100.
At least as of a couple years ago nuclear costs just a little more than solar plus storage and that’s not stopping anyone heh.
With recent price drops of solar and storage the difference is now multiples.
This is just plain false. Learn the difference between capacity cost and utilization cost.
Capex and financing is still an issue for many countries, and the opex is a non-zero commitment beyond just the fiscal portion. Most countries that pass-over nuclear energy are fairly justified in their decision. The status-quo is still not super psyched about nuclear proliferation.
There is room to change that, but the cards are very heavily stacked in China's favor. America's bad at the financing part, fickle when it comes to enforcement & supply chains, and ostensibly 2 days away from bailing on the IAEA itself. The proliferation-resistance of Thorium reactors gives China an export trump card that America will struggle to match.
> The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive
Let me fix that for you: "The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive in the bureaucratic high cost litigious Anglo-sphere". And that's pretty much all infrastructure these days, unfortunately.
It's not the litigiousness that makes it expensive. France was producing nuclear power plants at a cost per watt that nearly matches modern China. In fact, the mind-numbing cost overruns seem unique to the US.
Here's a Nature article about it:
Seems to me like it's more of a story of corruption than of over-regulation
france cant do it any more either. Flamanville was 12 years late and [1] 400% over budget. EPR2 is already delayed and over budget and they havent even started building yet!
UK cant do it either, see hinkley point c [2]
[1] https://www.nucnet.org/news/long-delayed-nuclear-plant-conne... [2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/edf-announces-hi...
The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive at the present and would the price of uranium rise enough that breeders would become economically viable most countries would just stop bothering with nuclear power altogether.