Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by seanmcdirmid on Saturday March 12, 2022 @06:48PM
(#30656266)
Nuclear has very high capital costs but fuel and operating costs (sans financing and insurance) are relatively cheap. Nuclear energy isn’t expensive if the plant is already built, so if you had to choose and the costs were already sunk, it wouldn’t matter. I guess your point is whether to build the plants in the first place rather than going with other renewables. Since hydro is pretty much tapped out, I guess that would be wind or biofuels?
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Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by pfdietz on Saturday March 12, 2022 @07:45PM
(#30656691)
My point was that when you calculate the cost/kWh from a nuclear plant, if you then are going to operate than plant only 50% (say) of the time you could otherwise do so, the cost/kWh from that plant goes way up, because those high fixed costs are now amortized over only half the output.
Note that even some of the OPERATING costs of a nuclear plant are fixed. You still need about as many staff to run the plant even if you cycle it up and down.
The renewables will be wind and PV. Biomass uses too much land area, and would likely be reserved for specialty markets like chemical feedstocks and perhaps aviation fuel.
Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by sharkster711 on Sunday March 13, 2022 @03:09AM
(#30658738)
I'd guess a lot of the operating cost of nuclear plants is just the cost to break even - that's repaying infrastructure loans etc
Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by throw7576521 on Sunday March 13, 2022 @03:06AM
(#30658728)
> sans financing and insurance
if the plant is already built isn’t expensive
?? What renewable isnt given that?