Re:Energy Department teams up with Bill Gates to move mini-n...
by pfdietz on Sunday August 26, 2018 @08:24AM
(#17845627)
Moltex is claiming they can get below $0.04/kWh (for N-th of a kind plants; FOAK would be a bit more expensive.)
They can claim this plausibly for two reasons: first, they can build a MUCH smaller containment building, due to lack of water or other volatiles in the nuclear island. Second, their design isolates the turbines from the nuclear island with a molten salt "thermal battery". This allows some dispatchability in their output, but more importantly it means turbine trips have no effect on reactor stability, which means non-nuclear-grade turbines can be used. This is apparently a very large cost savings.
Re:Energy Department teams up with Bill Gates to move mini-n...
by joering2 on Saturday August 25, 2018 @08:24PM
(#17843428)
Might be talking about European regulations. 15c per kw versus 3 in usa - thats 5x magnitude.
Doesnt suprise - gallon of gas in most european countries (sold by liters and funny thing - you first pump then pay!) is about 40% more than same amount in USA. it has been like this forever and doesnt look like will ever change.
If you're familiar with dispatch stacks, you know that 3c/kw is REALLY attractive. Regulation or no regulation, I don't think you're gonna get down to 2c or 1c with a new nuclear plant.
Maybe I'm wrong, and one day someone will figure out how to build SUPER cheap nuclear plants?
But I doubt it.
Best I would think they could do is some sort of hybrid system that uses nuclear generation, and then storage via a conventional hydro storage system or something maybe? I'd have to do the math on that. But yeah... 2c? That's very hard to do.