Nuclear Power Costs

The cluster centers on debates about the economics of nuclear power, including high capital and construction costs, comparisons to renewables and fossil fuels, decommissioning expenses, and factors like regulation and lost expertise making it uncompetitive.

📉 Falling 0.3x Science
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Keywords

news.net US CAPEX AC LWR EPR en.m U.S medium.com WW2 nuclear nuclear power plants power costs cost expensive plant energy reactor

Sample Comments

rhaway84773 Feb 4, 2023 View on HN

Because nuclear is significantly more expensive?

legulere Nov 24, 2016 View on HN

Nuclear is not cheap.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_p...

Moldoteck Oct 16, 2024 View on HN

but not bc nuclear is unprofitable. Nuclear there is 3-3.5bn/unit, dirt cheap. They just can't scale it faster due to stalling after fukushima events

aszantu Mar 27, 2021 View on HN

https://nonuclear.se/files/g100rs_en.pdf if all those costs would be factored into the price, nuclear power wouldn't be so cheap...

synergy20 Oct 20, 2024 View on HN

based on my reading nuclear power is much cheaper overall compared to wind solar etc?

mimixco May 13, 2019 View on HN

This is a start... https://nuclear-news.net/category/1-nuclear-issues/business-...

fartsucker69 Jun 15, 2022 View on HN

This is afaik true about nuclear power plants in general. They are one of the least cost-efficient energy generation sources out there because of their insane construction and running costs. In some countries they never make their money back, even if run by private companies, and only exist because of subsidies when they were built.However, they are by far the most practical and safe way to generate ludicrous amounts of environmentally friendly energy out of all technologies that we have avai

danuker Nov 24, 2022 View on HN

Nuclear has immense capital costs. Considering the exponential drop in solar/wind installation costs in the past few decades, it might turn out a bad investment.

pydry Aug 25, 2021 View on HN

It's cheap coz they built their nuclear plants ~50 years ago and front loaded the capital expenditure.They're sort of in a sweet spot right now financially but once their plants start aging out - which is soon - the costs will jump a lot if they try to extend their life or build brand new plants.The best time to go zero carbon with nuclear was 50 years ago. The second best time is never.

helen___keller Sep 9, 2022 View on HN

Nuclear is expensive. Depending on your source this can be a factor of 6 on capital costs for new nuclear projects compared to oil/gas (per kWh), and possibly even a factor of 3 on levelized electricity costs.Rising energy prices means poor folk will have to turn off their AC in the summer and turn off their heat in the winter.Sorry, nuclear doesn’t pass the bar you’ve set.(Note: many sources do suggest nuclear levelized cost is not much higher than other energy sources, but even t