this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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Such a shame seeing how we’ve all but abandoned nuclear energy as an option
That's mostly about it's incredibly high cost
Kyle Hill just posted a video on this: https://youtu.be/RPjBj1TEmRQ?si=4QrIEs9VAP5mqUJP
Yup! Turns out utilities don't want to spend a multi billion dollar upfront cost, even though they would reap huge rewards, as nuclear, over the whole lifetime of the plant, is very cost-effective. But hey, let's continue to subsidize gas instead!
It's not as cheap as wind or solar at current upfront costs.
I guess I should have clarified. When you do a cost analysis of per MW generation over the lifetime of the plant, it gets significantly cheaper. Cheaper than solar, or wind. The only issue is the large upfront cost of billions of dollars, like I previously stated. The cost of solar and wind is cheaper up front, but on a large generation scale, is lacking. Nuclear is the only solution right now to the climate. There is no other large scale generation that can sustain demand as clean as nuclear.
I'm talking about the exact same thing. Wind and solar are cheaper by that metric.
Nuclear is still cost-competitive with long-duration storage, so if that doesn't fall in price (which is what has been happening with storage recently) it might make sense to use for 10% or so of overall generation.
That is inaccurate. You can look up LCOE for all of these and Nuclear is right up there with Gas. Also, you can't have 10% of your generation be nuclear with solar and wind making up the majority. You literally cannot produce that much electricity. Nuclear, being arguably the most efficient source of energy and the largest capacity, it makes sense for nuclear to be in place of our coal and gas plants with solar and wind supplements. But hey, that's just what I studied for a living.
I did. That was true 20 years ago. It's not now
Not here in Illinois thankfully. We've got enough electric from nuclear that we export to other states.