China to supercharge uranium race with 150 new nuclear reactors

Re:China to supercharge uranium race with 150 new nuclear re... by zdragnar on Monday November 08, 2021 @04:36PM (#29154591)

Reading that link, levelized solar plus battery storage is twice the cost of nuclear. It is cheap to generate the electricity, but only when backed by natural gas or hydro.

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Re:China to supercharge uranium race with 150 new nuclear re... by driest on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @01:46AM (#29158520)

yes, solar and wind energy generation is intermittent, that's no surprise to anyone. but it is much much cheaper than nuclear energy.

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Re:China to supercharge uranium race with 150 new nuclear re... by zdragnar on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @09:39AM (#29162313)

This misses the point. You cannot compare solar and nuclear directly, because they serve different needs.

Without battery or natural gas, solar and wind are not useful. You have to have some sort of backup, sufficient to avoid brownouts or blackouts, and so you end up with the full capitalization and maintenance cost of not-solar anyway.

To properly compare solar with nuclear, you must add on the cost of battery and / or natural gas (or equivalent fast backup), at which point nuclear is cheaper.

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Re:China to supercharge uranium race with 150 new nuclear re... by bryanlarsen on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @08:20PM (#29170007)

Here's solar+battery for $40/MWh. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...

That's at least half the cost of nuclear, maybe as much as a fifth.

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