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Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by pfdietz on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @12:21PM (#31755314)
That's overnight cost, not included in model.energy. You also have to add in the financing cost during construction.

If we are talking about Korean export NPPs, the Barakh NPP has four reactors for a total of 24.4B$, producing 5.6GW(e). THis is about $4B/GW. If I plug in 4000 per MW (its euros, not $, but they're not too different right now) for the capital cost of nuclear in model.energy, increase the NPP lifetime to 40 years, and use US 2011 weather data, nuclear optimizes to zero.

I'll add that model.energy is looking at the best case for nuclear: providing baseload. Handling variability will incentivize storage, which means renewables will be at an increased advantage. Dispatchable demand of any kind, even slightly dispatchable (allowed to be off 10% of the time, say) also tilts the game toward renewables.

The 25 year lifespan for nuclear there may reflect economic obsolescence rather than technical lifespan. Energy technology is evolving quickly now, so investors may simply refuse to credit the promise of such long lifespans. Even in the US, there have been existing NPPs that shut down because they could not recoup their operating costs (granted, much of that was due to gas and also renewable subsidies, but with solar having dropped in cost by nearly an order of magnitude in the last decade it's a bold move to assume it won't keep falling.)

Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by DennisP on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @02:12PM (#31756946)
Do the same and use German data, and nuclear optimizes to 100%. The US has especially abundant wind and solar.

I would very much like to see a similar model that includes a demand curve. Preferably, customizable demand curves, to allow for modeling of e.g. flatter curves due to electric vehicle charging at night.

Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by pfdietz on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @02:49PM (#31757518)
Yes, Europe (and particularly eastern Europe) are better places for nuclear, because of higher latitude and (away from coasts) lower winds.

This is all just delaying the crossing point though. Nuclear fans are betting nuclear's costs fall while renewables and storage run into brick walls and stop getting cheaper. It's not clear why one should assume this, or why an investor should bet on that outcome. And it is just a financial bet; in the worst case for renewables they just come in a bit more expensive than nuclear, so it's not like the economy explodes.

Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by DennisP on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @09:33PM (#31761611)
Ok, but "I think renewables will get cheaper faster than nuclear" is a very different claim than "renewables are way cheaper than nuclear right now."
Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by pfdietz on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @09:44PM (#31761679)
It's a different claim. It's looking at trends rather than at a specific point.

Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production (of the solar hardware). Solar is about 4% of global electricity production now, so scaling it to saturation (just for current electricity demand, which will grow as the world becomes richer and more electrification replaces fossil heat) would drop the cost by another factor of 3.

Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by MagnumOpus on Thursday June 16, 2022 @05:32AM (#31764063)
> Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production

This only worked while panels were the lion's share of the cost of a solar installation. These days, costs of real estate, installation and grid connection far exceed the cost of panels -- and those costs go up every year with labour costs rather than coming down.

Re:Nuclear is back on the table for a green future by pfdietz on Thursday June 16, 2022 @08:12AM (#31765103)
Costs of installation only go up? There has been steady improvement there, particularly at utility scale. No more expensive poured concrete foundations, just screw earth anchors into the ground.

Or are you talking labor-intensive installation onto residential rooftops? Well, stop doing that, it's kind of stupid.

Real estate costs are a tiny fraction of the cost of installed solar in much of the US, and in much of the world. A solar powered global economy will not be putting many panels on the small fraction of the world's surface that's unusually expensive, but will focus those panels on places where it's cheaper. It's the same reason we don't grow wheat in Manhattan.