this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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$60k per MW or $210M for a nuclear reactors worth (3.5GW). Sure... the reactor will go 24/7 (between maintenance and refuelling down times, and will use less land (1.75km² Vs ~40km²) but at 1% of the cost, why are we still talking about nuclear.
(I'm using the UKs Hinckley Point C power station as reference)
A MW of solar averages out to about .2 MWh per hour. A MW of nuclear averages about .9 MWh per hour.
But even so as the UK does it, nuclear power isn't worth it. France and China are better examples since they both picked a few designs and mass produced them.
China's experience indicates you can mass produce nuclear relatively cheaply and quickly, having built 35 out of 57GW in the last decade, and another 88GW on the way, however it's not nearly as quick to expand as solar, wind, and fossil fuels.
In many regions solar capacity factor is much higher than 20%; for example, the entire US. https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2021/utility-scale_pv