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[Aqizzar]

Sup dudes.  OP updated slightly, just in time before I have to do it again for Michigan, which I guess will actually matter for something.

My cleaned up OP is also thirty thousand characters, 3/4 of the limit for one post.  I might need to stick stuff somewhere for storage.

[Nadaka]

Sup dudes.  OP updated slightly, just in time before I have to do it again for Michigan, which I guess will actually matter for something.

My cleaned up OP is also thirty thousand characters, 3/4 of the limit for one post.  I might need to stick stuff somewhere for storage.

If things get too full in the OP... you could move sections to their own posts. Those posts are linked in the OP, and the end of those posts link back to the OP for convenience. Its like building a hyper linked index out of forum posts.

[mainiac]

They are cheaper per-watt then nuclear.

Do you actually have a cite for this?

AFAIK since 1988 the only nuclear plant construction we have done has been finishing the second reactor on Watts Bar.  All other nuclear plant construction projects have been shelved due to costs.

It's costing them 2.5 billion dollars to finish the second generator at Watts Bar and it will generate around 1.1 billion watts.  That's about 2.3 dollars/watt for a project that was nearly finished.  It is expected to finish in 2014, a 7 year timeline for a project described as "80% done" when started by it's proponents (TVA, .  So give a 10% adjustment for inflation.  Give a 50% adjustment for the fact that a solar plant could have had 6 and a half years of power generation during the time that this project has been under construction compared to a generous 6 month schedule for putting up a solar farm.  Oh and they are expecting cost overruns but we won't count those because we don't know how big they are yet.

So that's $3.80/watt just to finish an "80% done" project.  Compare that to solar panels where you can easily find prices of $1/watt online with a brief search.  Large scale projects can beat that.  For solar we should expect about 30% efficiency during the daytime when it's peak demand and 0% efficiency at night.  So that's $3.33/watt for solar to give us power during the hours that currently dictate our power needs.  Yes if we build a ton of solar then we need to worry about night supply.  But even a really ambitious program won't run into those problems for a long, long time.  Yes the panel themselves aren't the whole cost but they are the bulk of the cost, installation is pretty cheap and there is little maintenance.  So we are looking at something about in the range of Watts Bar, assuming the expected cost overruns don't happen.

And keep in mind that Watts Bar was a lot cheaper then we should expect for a new nuclear plant where they are starting from scratch.  Such a plant won't be piggybacking on the first generator and won't have a lot of construction work left over from the 80s that wasn't finished.  But despite those savings Watts Bar still has trouble competing with solar in the peak demand hours that actually dictate our power capacity needs.  If Watts Bar can barely compete then it's no surprise that we aren't building nuclear plants in this country.  They just aren't economically viable.  And the cost estimates for nuclear keep rising while the costs of solar power are going to keep their steady downward trajectory.

Maybe there are a few more projects like Watts Bar, where it makes sense to resume earlier shelved construction and the costs can be contained with better management and planning.  But breaking new ground?  That's just not going to make sense unless things change a lot.

[palsch]

Mind if we actually use some data now?

Let's keep it simple with wiki's list of estimates from various governments.

The US works things out for plants and supplies coming on in 2016. This excludes any external incentives and most external non-regulated costs. The only nod to such externalities is a minor 3% increase in carbon intensive technologies.

Spoiler: US Costs (click to show/hide)

I'd note that nuclear here is higher than coal because coal doesn't include external costs while nuclear does (it's heavily regulated plus healthy and safety risks are fairly direct, so easily estimated). The total costs of nuclear are projected as flatted (less variation) than any other source, which results in lower maximums and less variation.

Going to European estimates, far more external costs are rolled in. Coal is basically out of the window once EU regulations enter the picture. Solar is actually estimated as far cheaper in the UK, with a lot of regional variance, but still more costly than coal.

My problem with saying we need more nuclear is that we do need a good 5 years, minimum, to get nuclear plants online. Probably more. The massive slump in production means we have lost much of the trained labour we need to roll out new plants, meaning a lot of training needed. You don't want to ever cut any corners in the licensing procedure either. You can't really fast track new nuclear plants. We really needed to approve and start a new generation a decade ago. As it is we are losing an entire generation of plants with nothing much to replace them.

Affordable renewables don't really scale to cover the gap, while coal and gas are pretty stupid options even with capture schemes (I've only seen one that works and that requires building your plant on an old natural gas mine). Oil is a non starter. And we simply aren't going to cut energy consumption that much and really don't want to from a technological/social point of view.

Basically, no good answers.

[mainiac]

I'm sorry but there is no data for nuclear energy.  We haven't built a new plant in decades.  Honestly I trust my speculation a lot better then the official estimates because only the optimistic estimates are going to get published, as evidenced by the cost overruns of the projects that do happen.

There is data for solar of course, but I was trying to bring up the metric of watts/dollar not kilowatts/dollar and the latter is more obscure so I was just too lazy to look it up.  Watts/dollar is why we need to make the shift because solar solves our peak demand.

[Zrk2]

New nuclear power plants cost more per watt then green energy.  Or at least they would if they didn't keep getting slowed or stopped because the costs are so high.  The cost of solar and wind is going down while the cost of new nuclear is not.  Why would anyone want to build another watt of new nuclear is beyond me.  Well actually it's not beyond me.  Nuclear is the "sensible" "moderate" position that shows you aren't an ideologue.

In startup costs only. Here in Ontario Nuclear generates one kWh for 4-6 cents, and we pay 80.2 cents per kWh on average for green energy. Of course that's due to a ridiculous subsidy, that's probably there to buy votes from farmers.

Woah, those posts were hefty, but I thought some numbers from here would be good, and the great Wiki brings us this:


As we can see only Wind power beats it and it is roughly 50% the cost of solar.

[Sirus]

Sup dudes.  OP updated slightly, just in time before I have to do it again for Michigan, which I guess will actually matter for something.

My cleaned up OP is also thirty thousand characters, 3/4 of the limit for one post.  I might need to stick stuff somewhere for storage.

*spittake*
There's a limit?! 

[lemon10]

Just read the intro (again) and dear god, caucasus are crazy hopefully ron paul wins them all. 

[GlyphGryph]

Maniac, I'm not sure if you can use the US opposition to new nuclear plants as justification for why we shouldn't build new nuclear plants. And it's not particularly fair to roll subsidies into your green energy efficiency calculations either.

There are plenty of countries in the world where reliable data for nuclear costs per hour can be found, and I'm pretty sure those are the ones we should be going with.

[mainiac]

Those estimates of nuclear costs are based on unrealistic costs and timetables though.  The real world experience has been that they come in over budget and late.  People expect to build plants in 6-7 years and then 2 years later they haven't even broken ground.  The Watts Bar will (hopefully) be finished in 7 years and that was building on a huge amount of previously done work.

And solar energy gives us power at peak hours.  Half the capacity of new nuclear or coal is nighttime capacity when we have excess capacity just because nuclear and coal can't be shut off at night.  So a comparison of watt-hours to watt-hours is misleading.  That is why I brought up watts despite there being less readily available stuff for that.  My original statement is that nuclear was passed in watts, not watt-hours.

What subsidies was I rolling into my green energy calculations?

[Sirus]

Obama is hosting a blues concert at the White House. He is now the coolest president in recent history.

[mainiac]

You finally picked up on that?

[Sirus]

Picked up on what? The concert, or Obama's coolness?

I just heard the sound of blues from the living room TV, and wandered in to see Barack leading into the song Sweet Home Chicago.
I knew Obama was cool, at least in comparison to Bush, the only other president from my lifetime that I paid attention to. The concert just made it official.

[Nadaka]

Picked up on what? The concert, or Obama's coolness?

I just heard the sound of blues from the living room TV, and wandered in to see Barack leading into the song Sweet Home Chicago.
I knew Obama was cool, at least in comparison to Bush, the only other president from my lifetime that I paid attention to. The concert just made it official.

Meh, Clinton played the Saxaphone on the Arsenio Hall show.

[jester]

I knew Obama was cool, at least in comparison to Bush

The stuff growing in my shower is cooler than bush, and less hazardous to my health