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40% of US electricity is now emissions-free (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

A coal power plant is rougly the same cost per GW as solar or wind

Incorrect. Costs listed per KW of generation:

Coal power $4,074 (3.07 x the cost of solar PV and 2.37x the cost of onshore wind)
Wind power (onshore) $1,718
Solar photovoltaic $1,327

source

I agree it’s expensive, but so were solar and wind a couple decades ago. Government investment helped research, development, scaling up - imagine if that had been done in the '80s

The first commercial nuclear power plant in the USA came online in 1958. source That's 66 years ago. If time was going to make it cheaper we would have seen that by now. Instead the most recent reactors to come online, which occurred just this year, were projected to cost $14 billion and instead are cost $31 billion! Even worst, this isn't an entirely new nuclear power plant, its just two additional reactors at an existing operational plant. source

Nuclear just costs too much for what you get at the end.

[–] wikibot@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

Different methods of electricity generation can incur a variety of different costs, which can be divided into three general categories: 1) wholesale costs, or all costs paid by utilities associated with acquiring and distributing electricity to consumers, 2) retail costs paid by consumers, and 3) external costs, or externalities, imposed on society. Wholesale costs include initial capital, operations & maintenance (O&M), transmission, and costs of decommissioning. Depending on the local regulatory environment, some or all wholesale costs may be passed through to consumers. These are costs per unit of energy, typically represented as dollars/megawatt hour (wholesale). The calculations also assist governments in making decisions regarding energy policy. On average the levelized cost of electricity from utility scale solar power and onshore wind power is less than from coal and gas-fired power stations,: TS-25 but this varies a lot depending on location.: 6–65

^article^ ^|^ ^about^

[–] ironeagl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Ah, perhaps my source was off. Thanks for the additional data.

But looking at it another way, nuclear is less than twice coal. Estimating the cost of that georgia plant would put it at $16-17B, so those overruns would be atypical.

But my main point on cost is that government investment has been lacking in nuclear compared to renewables: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2021/12/27/why-is-solar-energy-getting-250-times-more-in-federal-tax-credits-than-nuclear/?sh=4a783c3221cf

Without investment, it's going to stay just as expensive. And the main regulating body not having a mandate to develop the technology has just been holding us back.