See the LCOE graphs in this article for the trends: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
We need a model that is cheap and safe everywhere, in every country, not just in china and russia.
Also, I wouldn’t put too much faith into Russian numbers for their nuclear projects. They’ve pretty much got the patent on propaganda.
Russia is not needed though, China is very cost effective and their popular model is in fact American based. Their other popular model is a french derivative. Their secret sauce is to build refined second generation models with added safety instead of building 4th generation economic ineptia because of absurdly high safety bloat. The answer to how to make nuclear reactors costs effective is simple: 1) Do not fire all competent and trained nuclear engineers 2) Make nuclear reactors maximally secure, not absurdly secure.
There are many possiblities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage
Then there is wind power and other sources such as geothermal energy and Bio-gas Plants, which is are independant of day time. And let's not forget the lower energy demand at night, the possibilities for supply based energy consumption, (green) gas imports from somewhere else.
> France will also increase its solar power capacity tenfold by 2050 to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) and target building 50 offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of at least 40 GW.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-...
So they are adding ~10 GW nuclear (6 * 1.6 GW) and at least 140 GW of renewables. Use any capacity factor you want but the numbers speak for themselves.
The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.
Interesting, I've never read about that angle. Nuclear is a great complement to Wind/Solar as it provides a steady base load.
Due to the extremely high fixed costs and lower marginal costs of nuclear plants they then have to make the money back in fewer hours, driving cost even higher.
The other issue is the costly steam turbine side. The reason gas won over coal is the efficiency and tiny footprint of gas turbines. Tack on a tiny steam side for the last percent of efficiency and you have a CCGT plant. Coal and nuclear share the same steam side, both have been dead ends since the 80s.
The problem is most renewables fall off before peak load subsides. That's why cheap energy storage would be a huge boon for transient renewables as they could keep providing energy after the sun is down and the wind has subsided.
Take a look here: https://nuclear-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Lo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load#/media/File:Renewabl...
So, this means that nuclear is crowded out of the market during the sun hours, and later all windy hours. Take a low-ball nuclear cost of ~$130 per MWh. [1] Say that wind + solar can fulfill 12 hours per day, this is a low estimation. Current estimates is that ~80% is easily feasible without storage.
That means the nuclear plant has to make do with the 12 hours left. The nuclear plant has now, based on napkin math, entered a LCOE of $260 per MWh. It was already hilariously uncompetitive at $130 per MWh, now try $260. Now you can do power 2 gas and then burn it or any other extremely inefficient energy storage and still come out ahead.
> While historically large power grids used unvarying power plants to meet the base load, there is no specific technical requirement for this to be so. The base load can equally well be met by the appropriate quantity of intermittent power sources and dispatchable generation.
> Grid operators solicit bids to find the cheapest sources of electricity over short and long term buying periods.
> Nuclear and coal plants have very high fixed costs, high plant load factor but very low marginal costs, though not as low as solar, wind, and hydroelectric. On the other hand, peak load generators, such as natural gas, have low fixed costs, low plant load factor and high marginal costs.
> According to National Grid plc chief executive officer Steve Holliday and others, baseload is "outdated".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load
[1]: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
Is this not a major project? The article is very lacking in details, so it is hard to tell what it amounts to in terms of impact.