I would be nice to see it be a nighttime base-load provider, but I think it has been kneecapped for so long in so many different ways, that it is effectively a dead technology (in the US at least).
It's a little less than renewables and a little more than coal.
> I would be nice to see it be a nighttime base-load provider
The bigger issue with Solar is the dramatic difference in generation between the summer and winter. So not only do you need something for "nighttime," you also need something for "winter."
Not OP - but dead as in "not financially viable to add new grid capacity". Had we gone all in on nuclear 40 or 50 years ago, that might be a different story but alas. You can buy so much more solar + storage than nuclear capacity now, and the former has definite timelines and almost zero construction risk. The latter bankrupts whichever companies touch it.
Vogtle 3/4 saw negative learning rates (the second was more expensive to build than the first) and came in a decade behind schedule at over $20,000/KW. Enormous solar + storage projects are coming online at more like $2,500/KW. Their levelized cost is less than half the comparable cost to a nuclear plant without all the risk.
At current prices, to power the UK for 36 hours off battery storage, it would cost (according to Gemini) £150bn to £400bn for the batteries alone - that doesn't include purchasing land, wiring them up and so on, nor the cost of the wind farms and solar panels to feed the batteries. We don't/can't/won't do hydro pumped storage in the UK.
Sizewell C, our massively overpriced nuclear power station, comes in at about £100bn.
At current prices, to power the UK for 36 hours off battery storage, it would cost (according to Gemini) £150bn to £400bn for the batteries alone - that doesn't include purchasing land, wiring them up and so on, nor the cost of the wind farms and solar panels to feed the batteries. We don't/can't/won't do hydro pumped storage in the UK.
Sizewell C, our massively overpriced nuclear power station, comes in at about £100bn.
It comes in at £100bn for 3GW - that's about 7% of total UK consumption. A huge amount to be sure, but the choice isn't £100bn for Sizewell or £400bn for batteries.
Rolls Royce SMR for Czechia at 0.5GW is about £3bn
To be clear - this doesn't exist. They "aim" to start construction in 3 years and it's a FOAK project so will surely be delayed. The initial target was a cost of £2bn - the paper cost has already increased by £1b without a shovel turning over a single grain of sand.
It's a huge shame and problem across the 'West' - but we can't build megaprojects for anything resembling a reasonable cost any more.
Unfortunately for British nuclear advocates - their plants have substantially worse economics than US ones. Hinckley C was granted its license in 2012 and authorized in 2013 with a strike price of £89.50 per MWh when the projected cost was £7 billion -- it's now scheduled to be completed in 2030 at a cost nearing £50 billion. There is literally no amount of baseload generation worth that cost.
The wholesale price coming out of Hinckley will be higher than the retail price in most of the US.
What made the cost to balloon so much, and the timeline to set so huge a delay? Technical problems? Regulatory hurdles? Locals resisting? Running out of money?
10-11 Sizewell C's, assuming the UK 2025 average demand of ~33 GW.
A couple more to deal with outages. Plus some battery capacity, which you want because nuclear doesn't load follow well. At £38 billion per, you need about £500 billion to power the whole country. About 40% of one annual UK budget.
It's possible to imagine building Sizewell C's at considerably lower cost, as is done it other nations that exist, and manage to build such things without the huge multipliers, but that's another matter.
Why are you pretending that there's no wind in the UK? Or Germany? In fact, all of Europe is basically surrounded by a coastline with huge amounts of wind resources.
Or just gas peak already.
But look, if data centers want to fund a whole bunch of advanced nuclear and wait 10 years for it to get built and will foot the bill for the cost overruns, okay I'm not going to stop them.
But let's face it all. This nuclear stuff which is going to be for data centers is all an externalized cost that's going to be dumped on the public.
The military is given extra leeway in its decision making. There is no NIMBY for military projects. But, as for civilian power plants, we don't really build them in large numbers like we used to. In the 1950s, it was thought that every town would have its own nuclear powerplant, but that clearly didn't come to pass.
A relief valve for undersupplied medical isotopes used for cancer treatment.
Ah, a fellow person of SciShow pedigree I presume. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKiSYHf1HyI
Nuclear power is a key component in a diversified energy portfolio along with solar. Glad to see this making progress.
Agreed. The state I live in relies on a good combination of both.
I would be nice to see it be a nighttime base-load provider, but I think it has been kneecapped for so long in so many different ways, that it is effectively a dead technology (in the US at least).
Current stats put it at 18.6%: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
It's a little less than renewables and a little more than coal.
> I would be nice to see it be a nighttime base-load provider
The bigger issue with Solar is the dramatic difference in generation between the summer and winter. So not only do you need something for "nighttime," you also need something for "winter."
What do you mean by "dead technology"? It powers a large number of U.S. warships.
Not OP - but dead as in "not financially viable to add new grid capacity". Had we gone all in on nuclear 40 or 50 years ago, that might be a different story but alas. You can buy so much more solar + storage than nuclear capacity now, and the former has definite timelines and almost zero construction risk. The latter bankrupts whichever companies touch it.
Vogtle 3/4 saw negative learning rates (the second was more expensive to build than the first) and came in a decade behind schedule at over $20,000/KW. Enormous solar + storage projects are coming online at more like $2,500/KW. Their levelized cost is less than half the comparable cost to a nuclear plant without all the risk.
Some numbers:
At current prices, to power the UK for 36 hours off battery storage, it would cost (according to Gemini) £150bn to £400bn for the batteries alone - that doesn't include purchasing land, wiring them up and so on, nor the cost of the wind farms and solar panels to feed the batteries. We don't/can't/won't do hydro pumped storage in the UK.
Sizewell C, our massively overpriced nuclear power station, comes in at about £100bn.
Rolls Royce SMR for Czechia at 0.5GW is about £3bn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_SMR#Cost
The current dunkelflaute with no wind, and little sun, in Northern Europe has been 3 days, or 72 hours. This is a regular occurence.
The longest dunkelflaute was the winter of 1996/97, for 55 days.
At current prices, to power the UK for 36 hours off battery storage, it would cost (according to Gemini) £150bn to £400bn for the batteries alone - that doesn't include purchasing land, wiring them up and so on, nor the cost of the wind farms and solar panels to feed the batteries. We don't/can't/won't do hydro pumped storage in the UK.
Sizewell C, our massively overpriced nuclear power station, comes in at about £100bn.
It comes in at £100bn for 3GW - that's about 7% of total UK consumption. A huge amount to be sure, but the choice isn't £100bn for Sizewell or £400bn for batteries.
Rolls Royce SMR for Czechia at 0.5GW is about £3bn
To be clear - this doesn't exist. They "aim" to start construction in 3 years and it's a FOAK project so will surely be delayed. The initial target was a cost of £2bn - the paper cost has already increased by £1b without a shovel turning over a single grain of sand.
It's a huge shame and problem across the 'West' - but we can't build megaprojects for anything resembling a reasonable cost any more.
Appreciate the numbers. Keep in mind this discussion is US-focused; where politics dramatically influence nuclear's cost.
Unfortunately for British nuclear advocates - their plants have substantially worse economics than US ones. Hinckley C was granted its license in 2012 and authorized in 2013 with a strike price of £89.50 per MWh when the projected cost was £7 billion -- it's now scheduled to be completed in 2030 at a cost nearing £50 billion. There is literally no amount of baseload generation worth that cost.
The wholesale price coming out of Hinckley will be higher than the retail price in most of the US.
What made the cost to balloon so much, and the timeline to set so huge a delay? Technical problems? Regulatory hurdles? Locals resisting? Running out of money?
How many Sizewell C do you need to power all of the UK? That plant is only 3.5GW.
10-11 Sizewell C's, assuming the UK 2025 average demand of ~33 GW.
A couple more to deal with outages. Plus some battery capacity, which you want because nuclear doesn't load follow well. At £38 billion per, you need about £500 billion to power the whole country. About 40% of one annual UK budget.
It's possible to imagine building Sizewell C's at considerably lower cost, as is done it other nations that exist, and manage to build such things without the huge multipliers, but that's another matter.
Why are you pretending that there's no wind in the UK? Or Germany? In fact, all of Europe is basically surrounded by a coastline with huge amounts of wind resources.
Or just gas peak already.
But look, if data centers want to fund a whole bunch of advanced nuclear and wait 10 years for it to get built and will foot the bill for the cost overruns, okay I'm not going to stop them.
But let's face it all. This nuclear stuff which is going to be for data centers is all an externalized cost that's going to be dumped on the public.
The military is given extra leeway in its decision making. There is no NIMBY for military projects. But, as for civilian power plants, we don't really build them in large numbers like we used to. In the 1950s, it was thought that every town would have its own nuclear powerplant, but that clearly didn't come to pass.