Thus it’s really storage that Nuclear needs to compete with not generation. Further, as nuclear takes years to build it’s competing with future battery prices 5-55 years from now. Using conservative total system costs of say 200$ per kWh of storage every day for 10 years (200/10/365) ~= 5.5c/kWh. So, Nuclear needs to compete with load following at (3+5.5) = 8.5c/kWh for part of the day or mass generation at 3c/kWh. Assuming it’s ~50/50 of each your 24/7 Nuclear is facing 6c/kWh average electricity prices.
Also, EROI can’t actually get low when you’re talking electricity at those prices.
PS: My comparison to turbines was simply a minimal calculation of capital costs. It’s an argument that any design will have higher capital costs and thus you can safely use that as your theoretical perfect design’s capital cost. Then add other costs on top of that to try and find Nuclear’s minimum theoretical cost.
EROI is just energy system output/manufacturing energy in. How is that a function of price?
EROI is a function of price in that you need to pay for more than just energy when building something, interest payments for example. If your infrastructure costs X$ to build it must use far less than X$ worth of energy. And, if you’re building the cheapest energy source possible it must therefore have a high EROI.
> And, if you’re building the cheapest energy source possible it must therefore have a high EROI.
That's only true to the degree that the energy cost of building an energy system is directly proportional to the dollar cost, which is often very not true.
This is simply pure NIMBI issue which also hits nuclear power.
“That's only true to the degree that the energy cost of building an energy system is directly proportional to the dollar cost, which is often very not true.”
This is an economic argument if X$ buys you K energy from the cheapest energy source it buys some number less than K from more expensive energy sources. Thus the least expensive energy source must have positive EROI. As solar is capital intensive interest payments representing zero energy are a significant cost, which pushes up the minimum possible EROI.
From your link:
"They came from high desert communities such as Daggett, Joshua Tree and Lucerne Valley, where existing solar projects are seen by many as eyesores that destroy desert ecosystems and fuel larger dust storms."
Nuclear companies are trying to deal with load following by coupling to energy storage systems like thermal storage (molten salts), pumped hydro, and batteries. In an increasingly variable-renewable world, more energy storage is required. The nukes can be used to charge batteries in the daytime while the solar PV runs the grid, and then for the evening peak while solar ramps down, the nukes and batteries carry the evening, and then the nukes do the baseload at night.
The one thing that nuclear reactors can do that no other energy source can do is provide hugely-deployable 24/7 low-carbon energy for over a year (e.g. through the seasons). Hydro can do it in some places but it's mostly maxed out in the proper geography.
Finally, EROI on wind/solar with massive battery systems gets dangerously low.