What do you mean by cheapest energy? Nuclear is more expensive than renewables, if you factor in construction and maintenance cost. It only works because it has been massively subdisidized.
Or do you have some source that this energy is „cheaper“? Please be aware that France caps their electricity prices internally and subsidizes them with taxes (which is fine, but makes the prices incomparable to other countries).
„The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.“
Are you pretending that renewable are not subsidised? Renewable are young yet, how will the prices do in 10 years when they will start to be maintained and replaced? What about the energy you need to complement renewable? Is it considered in their price or not? Do you consider the price of renewable when they’re cheap because of overproduction?
You’re like “did you consider factors a, b, c, d?” and then link to an article that explicitly ignores all of those factors and compares only the amortized cost of the construction of the plants, omitting all other operating costs.
We omit the higher operational costs for the nuclear power plant as they are an economic benefit as well. These costs are recycled back into the economy through wages and taxes.
On top of that, this argument is a classic economic fallacy. It’s a little bit like saying “breaking windows is an economic benefit because people will pay glass makers to fix them and so money flows back into the economy.” It completely ignores opportunity costs.
I haven’t seen any levelized cost of electricity study that makes nuclear competitive with wind and solar power. Now I’m not against nuclear power in principle, and as the renewable share goes up grid operators might be willing to pay a premium to subsidize reliable nuclear base load generators.
However the economic proposition I just cannot see. The long lifetime is actually working against nuclear plants here as potential investors assume much greater risk, combined with enormous up-front construction costs. Who wants to invest billions of dollars to bet on electricity prices 60 years into the future? Lots of things can happen in that time.
That’s why small reactors are developed. So these parasites of investors can finally be useful to society.
Now I linked the first article I found. It’s hard enough to find any relevant information. You chose to answer that only. Fine.
In Europe the market is not free. And any sane country would subsidised energy production. I would bet USA also does it. In Europe ARENH means all énergies are helped by nuclear energy production, a system meant to help other energies to compete with it. Renewable are funded by states for decades now, and they’ve been so eventhough they were far from competitive 20 years ago.
Maybe it comes from France exporting the cheapest energy in Europe in the last 20 years. But yeah, 2022 means nuclear energy is worthless I guess.
What do you mean by cheapest energy? Nuclear is more expensive than renewables, if you factor in construction and maintenance cost. It only works because it has been massively subdisidized.
Or do you have some source that this energy is „cheaper“? Please be aware that France caps their electricity prices internally and subsidizes them with taxes (which is fine, but makes the prices incomparable to other countries).
„The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.“
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSKBN1W909J
Are you pretending that renewable are not subsidised? Renewable are young yet, how will the prices do in 10 years when they will start to be maintained and replaced? What about the energy you need to complement renewable? Is it considered in their price or not? Do you consider the price of renewable when they’re cheap because of overproduction?
https://4thgeneration.energy/the-true-costs-of-nuclear-and-renewables/
You’re like “did you consider factors a, b, c, d?” and then link to an article that explicitly ignores all of those factors and compares only the amortized cost of the construction of the plants, omitting all other operating costs.
On top of that, this argument is a classic economic fallacy. It’s a little bit like saying “breaking windows is an economic benefit because people will pay glass makers to fix them and so money flows back into the economy.” It completely ignores opportunity costs.
I haven’t seen any levelized cost of electricity study that makes nuclear competitive with wind and solar power. Now I’m not against nuclear power in principle, and as the renewable share goes up grid operators might be willing to pay a premium to subsidize reliable nuclear base load generators.
However the economic proposition I just cannot see. The long lifetime is actually working against nuclear plants here as potential investors assume much greater risk, combined with enormous up-front construction costs. Who wants to invest billions of dollars to bet on electricity prices 60 years into the future? Lots of things can happen in that time.
That’s why small reactors are developed. So these parasites of investors can finally be useful to society.
Now I linked the first article I found. It’s hard enough to find any relevant information. You chose to answer that only. Fine.
In Europe the market is not free. And any sane country would subsidised energy production. I would bet USA also does it. In Europe ARENH means all énergies are helped by nuclear energy production, a system meant to help other energies to compete with it. Renewable are funded by states for decades now, and they’ve been so eventhough they were far from competitive 20 years ago.