Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors
by atwrk on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @05:05AM
(#41857048)
First, capacity factor is a silly metric to use for this. The industry uses LCOE or system LCOE, because this is about dollars per actual TWh produced, not capacity. In other words: A capacity factor of 10% doesn't matter if building 10x the amount is still cheaper.
With that said, the wind capacity factor in Germany is 20% for onshore and 40% for offshore, so even that was wrong by a factor of 2-4.
Not even close. Wind and solar are cheap _only_ if you don't depend on them. In particular, for the wind the adequacy rating is about 10% in most places. It means that you can expect 10% of the nameplate capacity to be available at all times system-wide. So multiply the wind energy costs by 10x, and suddenly they are quite more expensive than nuclear.
It's not even a question for the solar, it simply can't provide power during a day without storage.
> Even the nuclear lobby acknowledges this nowadays and has switched to other arguments.
Nope.