r/EnergyAndPower • u/DavidThi303 • 15d ago
Wind vs Nuclear
Hi all;
I took a look at the costs of Wind vs. Nuclear. It's large ranges for the numbers because the specifics drive a lot of the actual costs. But I think it gives fair ranges.
Please, for anyone who says my numbers are off, please please please provide a link to better numbers. I searched a lot to find what I list in the post (and links are in the post). But there could well be more up to date and/or comprehensive numbers that I didn't find.
thanks - dave
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u/stewartm0205 14d ago
Most utilities already have access to a backup power source. It’s call gas turbines. Cheap to build, expensive as hell to run. The thing to remember is that they already exist and are in place. The other thing to remember is that the demand for power isn’t fixed. It varies during the day and from season to season. That 90% capacity for nuclear doesn’t mean squat when you have to turn down the nuclear power plants to match your demand. It might be economical to use nuclear for 40% of your supply but it won’t be economical to use nuclear for 100%. Much too expensive capital wise. Then there is the dispatch problem. Power is purchase and sold on what the next MW cost. Subsidies makes the next MW for renewable negative so they will be first. Without subsidies the next MW for renewable is cheap because fuel is free and maintenance with includes the cost of manning is low. And once again renewable sells first.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
I 90% agree with you. I think nuclear should be the baseload. Then hydro & geothermal. Then wind/solar with gas backup.
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u/stewartm0205 14d ago
Capital cost, production cost, availability and the demand curve determines what power sources will be used. Our love and hate will not be a factor. Solar capital and production cost is very low and it is available during the peak demand period which makes it a strong daytime power source. This is what I think we happen over the next 20 years. Nuclear will stay at about 20% where it is currently. Coal baseload and peak load will continue to fall. Gas baseload will fall a little. Gas peak load is funny so it may actually increase. Battery storage will grow a lot but even then will be single digit. Hydro is most developed countries won’t change since it is mostly all developed. Wind will continue growing but not as much as solar. Solar will explode until it’s about 60%.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
I live in Colorado. I have rooftop solar. Solar will not get it done here in the winter. A good day is 28% of my house's power from solar. And as poor as it is here, think of poor New England.
Yes we could run transmission lines from West Texas to Colorado and parts Northeast. But my god the carrying capacity those would have to have.
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u/stewartm0205 14d ago
You do know that there is a lot more land space than there are roof top space. If you are a single story home and your entire roof is covered you should have enough power during the day.
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u/DavidThi303 13d ago
I have enough during the day. But not enough additional to also equal what I use when the sun is low/down.
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago edited 14d ago
You can go and say that ”nuclear should be baseload” all you want but how will you force the people to consume said (very expensive) nuclear power when renewables deliver?
Let’s look at two real world examples:
South Australia
South Australia already regularly have enough rooftop solar to curtail nearly all utility scale renewables.
The grid is effectively dead for utility scale production.
The Netherlands
The same story here. Rooftop and utility scale renewables being able to take up 100% of the grid load.
The ”other” color means solar pv.
Click through the months, it keeps happening nearly all year around!
Today they curtail the renewables because their old nuclear reactor can’t load follow. But that is a losing prospect in the long term and will lead to the nuclear plant shutting down more and more often because it would lose money on the electricity produced.
Which already regularly happens all around Europe in France, Spain, Sweden, Finland etc.
I think you need to accept that there simply is nothing called a ”baseload power plant” anymore. It is and always was an economical definition based on marginal cost, you can’t be the ”baseload” when someone else beats you on cost.
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u/Familiar_Signal_7906 13d ago edited 13d ago
You are correct, when wind and solar around its not as advisable to build baseload plants. This almost always means flexible fossil fired plants, which to me sounds like we will asymptotically approach a certain percentage of fossil fired plants to balance wind and solar resources, which hardly sounds like the energy transition you love to defend with arguments from ChatGPT and a bunch of no name think tanks.
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u/AngryCur 13d ago
Wow. You discovered capacity factors! Congrats!
Seriously, no one in the industry buys this argument even though nuclear advocates are it constantly.
What you need to show on cost is a PPA. the actual all in cost of power. I have never seen evidence of any PPA under $100/MWH FOR nuclear, while best in class win can come in under $20.
What matters is total portfolio cost, and just about every capacity expansion model out there fills up on either wind or solar depending on where you are, with some portion of something clean firm, which could be hydro, geothermal or nuclear
It’s great that you’re interested in energy but it’s a very complicated topic and back of the envelope is basically always wrong.
Hint: can you tell me why baseload generation drive up wholesale costs when there is solar on the system? If not, you’ve got a lot to learn
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u/DavidThi303 13d ago
I think the problem is when different energy sources are mis-applied. Nuclear for baseload and solar for peak makes a lot of sense. While solar for baseload and nuclear for peak would be incredibly stupid.
The problem in Colorado is they want to be 90% wind + solar and that means wind/solar for baseload. And doing that means batteries. Lots & lots of batteries.
Now if you compare nuclear vs solar + batteries, then nuclear starts to look pretty good.
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u/AngryCur 12d ago
lol. No. Nuclear for “baseload” is dumb because solar is zero marginal cost. Having nuclear as a flat dispatch means pushing zero cost energy off the grid and replacing it with more expensive energy which raises costs.
Again, people really should learn how energy markets work
Also, solar/ wind storage is cheaper by far at a portfolio at least up to 80% penetration. The most cost effective source for that last 20% is all we are talking about
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u/DavidThi303 12d ago
I'd call this pretty expensive. I agree solar is cheaper than nuclear. It's solar + batteries that's more expensive than nuclear. And you need the batteries for things like nighttime.
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u/AngryCur 11d ago
Actually, that’s about the same as nuclear. I have no idea how they managed to pay that much. Our projects are more like $40
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u/DavidThi303 11d ago
Hawaii is pretty corrupt (think New Jersey level, but laid back). So overpaying is a distinct possibility.
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u/Elrathias 14d ago
This kind of argument seriously needs to go away.
They do different things, they have different purposes, and they have different requirements.
The only thing in common they have, is that they produce quantities of electric energy over time.
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago
This is you admitting that nuclear power is horrifically expensive and want to remove the comparisons because they aren’t favorable.
I pay a single electricity bill, I don’t care how it is made, only that it is cheap.
The consensus in the research community is that there is no larger problem building 100% renewable energy systems.
That also does not adress how you would implement new built nuclear power in for example South Australia which already regularly have enough rooftop solar to curtail nearly all utility scale renewables.
The grid is effectively dead for utility scale production.
Let alone horrifically expensive nuclear power. Where the already insane economic calculus becomes laughable if it can’t get paid 24/7 all year around.
This is where every grid globally is heading towards.
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u/Donyk 14d ago
This is you admitting that nuclear power is horrifically expensive and want to remove the comparisons because they aren’t favorable.
Did you even read the article? It says literally the opposite. Now let's see if you "want to remove the comparisons because they aren’t favorable"
The consensus in the research community is that there is no larger problem building 100% renewable energy systems
There's absolutely not a consensus on this. Stop using this word for your political goals. How are we supposed to explain to climate deniers and anti-vaxx that science has reached a real consensus on these topics if people constantly BS about consensus where there isn't one.
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago edited 14d ago
Here’s a meta studie on the field of 100% renewable energy systems:
The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost. As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
But I suppose that is too sciency for you.
Since this study was published in 2022 storage has truly entered the hockey stick growth era and will in the US make up 30% of all new capacity in 2025.
A feat that was seen as unthinkable when this study was written.
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u/Donyk 14d ago
You didn't answer my question. Did you read the article of this post ? No because it seems it's you who's ignoring it because you don't like its conclusion.
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago edited 14d ago
The article we are commenting on is simply bad math from an outsider attempting to put nuclear power in a good light.
But I suppose you take it as gospel because it validates your world view?
How do you square it with the truly absolutely insane bonkers subsidy programs that any modern western nuclear power always gets hitched with to get built? You know when you step out from bad math and into the real world.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago edited 14d ago
Keep conversations civil and respectful. (ViewTrick1002 has been muted for 28 days)
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago edited 14d ago
Calm down mate. Why are you hellbent on wasting money? Because ”nuclear cool”??
I agree that Germany should have kept their fleet as long as it was needed, safe and economical. But we live in 2025, crying about past decisions is simply a waste of time and energy.
In small dense countries reactors are perfect since they are extremely space efficient.
You do know that we have this thing called a ”transmission grid”. We don’t need to make the power where it is used. As evidenced by nearly the entire existing nuclear power fleet being placed away from population centers.
Have a look at the Netherlands grid. Every time other (which is solar), wind + solar supplies over 100% the nuclear reactors would have to shut down.
Step through the months!
That is reality, in the Netherlands. One of the most densely populated countries on earth.
You do know that nuclear power has existed for 70 years and has only gotten more expensive for every passing year?
There was a first large scale attempt at scaling nuclear power culminating 40 years ago. Nuclear power peaked at ~20% of the global electricity mix in the 1990s. It was all negative learning by doing.
Then we tried again 20 years ago. There was a massive subsidy push. The end result was Virgil C. Summer, Vogtle, Olkiluoto and Flamanville. We needed the known quantity of nuclear power since no one believed renewables would cut it.
How many trillions in subsidies should we spend to try one more time? All the while the competition in renewables are already delivering beyond our wildest imaginations.
I am all for funding basic research in nuclear physics, but another trillion dollar handout to the nuclear industry is not worthwhile spending of our limited resources.
The old adage is "Good, fast and cheap", pick two.
When comparing nuclear power and renewables due to how horrifically expensive, inflexible and slow to build nuclear power is this one of those occasions where we get to pick all three when choosing renewables.
In the land of infinite resources and infinite time "all of the above" is a viable answer. In the real world we neither have infinite resources nor infinite time to fix climate change.
Lets focus our limited resources on what works and instead spend the big bucks on decarbonizing truly hard areas like aviation, construction, shipping and agriculture.
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u/Donyk 14d ago
Have a look at the Netherlands grid. Every time other (which is solar), wind + solar supplies over 100% the nuclear reactors would have to shut down.
What about the other 99% of the time? Answer: coal and gas.
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u/ViewTrick1002 14d ago edited 14d ago
Maybe stop operating on misinformation? The Netherlands are continuously tackling their previously extremely dirty grid.
They have managed to lower their grid gCO2/kWh by 55% since 2015.
But that is heresy when you can’t bring yourself to accept that renewables are extremely quickly delivering decarbonization.
In California we’ve seen a 30% YoY reduction in fossil gas usage coming from storage in 2024.
The problem is being solved as we speak.
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u/chmeee2314 15d ago edited 15d ago
Lazard is all way's a good place to verify your numbers especially for the US. At page 35 of their 2024 report, you can se the assumptions they make for each source of energy. Opex is Fixed O&M + Variable O&M + Fuel
Opex Wind: $24.5-40 / kW = $85.8-140mil / year
Opex Nuclear (Newbuild assuming 1.4GW) = $136-158/kW * Capacity + 4.4-5.15/MWh * annual production + $0.85/MMBTU * 10450 Btu/kWh * annual production * 1000 MMBTU kWh / Btu * MWh
Capaxity = 1400000kWh
Anual production = Capacity * ,9 * 24 * 365 / 1000 = 11'000'000MWh
Opex Nuclear (average) = $205.8mil + $52.5mil + $97.7mil = 356mil / year
I find it unlikely that your Opex is accurate. I believe the IEA also publishes similar works with breakdowns for region specific numbers.
Barakah's exact costs are very opaque. Aljazeera admits that estimates can go as high as 28-30bil with other sources going as high as 32bil. Korean Nuclear Projects in Europe are planned for even higher capx, Checkia is planning with a overnight cost of $8900/kWh and an interest free loan. Realistically to calculate their unsubsidized Capx you would have to assume commercial interest rate and would end up north of $10'000/kW.
Lifetime: You mention that the APR-1400 has a 60 year design life time, and then in your conclusion jump to 80+ This is not a fair comparison as you are comparing possible life expectancy to design life. Windmils are usually layed out for a 20-25 year design life, but can often operate past that as well. The Tvind Windmil in Denmark has been operating since 1978. In the USA Altamont Pass (576MW) has been operating since 1981. The reason to repower the windfarm starting in 2012 was to reduce Bird deaths due to the smaller size of the old Wind Turbines. I believe the re powering may still be ongoing, it was at least still happening in 2021.
Finally Discount rates, are the reason why most renewable projects don't design for lifetimes longer than 25 years. It simply ends up costing more to design longer lived plants than to repower once this is taken into account.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
I'll update it to what I have in https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/cost-analysis-of-a-nuclear-power (which was created in part with your advice). This post was written before and I never got it reviewed on r/energy because this was the post they banned me for.
So I put it here in case I had anything wrong with it. I should have reviewed and compared to the nuclear costs in https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/cost-analysis-of-a-nuclear-power first.
thanks - dave
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u/blunderbolt 15d ago
Once again:
If after doing some napkin math you come to a conclusion that is completely the opposite of the choices being made in the real world by utilities, IPPs, grid operators etc., you're probably the one that's missing something. If nuclear and wind CAPEX per kWh were comparable and nuclear had lower OPEX, literally no one would be building wind farms.
Some obvious issues with your analysis:
• Your nuclear CAPEX estimate is based on a cost estimate of a nuclear power plant published mid-construction and prior to further construction delays, in a country with more permissive labor/permitting/environmental regulations and with a significantly lower cost of labor than the US. The figure also hasn't been adjusted for inflation, whereas your wind figures appear to reflect current prices. $24.4B in 2018 prices is $31B in 2025 prices, for the record.
• Your nuclear OPEX is far too low and the link you cited doesn't actually mention those numbers, so it's not clear to me where you're getting them from. Check Lazard's or the IEA's numbers.
• Wind OPEX is too high. Again, check Lazard, IEA, NREL.
• You cannot simply triple the CAPEX of wind to compare costs across the lifespan of a nuclear plant. Doing so ignores the net present value of an asset with a shorter lifetime, and also ignores learning curves or that repowering costs less than greenfield construction.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
There are so many subsidies, now ended with Trump in office, that a wind farm in many cases could give the power for free and still be profitable. Most of the studies assume those subsidies.
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u/blunderbolt 14d ago
No, those subsidies have no impact whatsoever on OPEX costs and insofar as they impact CAPEX they do so to the same extent as they do nuclear—which is also eligible for the ITC.
This is just you reaching for any possible reason(regardless of their validity) to confirm your misinformed bias against solar and wind.
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u/drangryrahvin 14d ago
If you want me to post better numbers, then post a peer reviewed study by experts, not the unverified ramblings of a software engineer?
I mean there’s plenty to pick from, it they disagree with your author, so I guess they don’t count?
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
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u/drangryrahvin 14d ago
Ok, so all three of those are sourced through the first guy, so obviously they align with his conclusions and are not representative of the field. Strike one.
The first article did not contain a disclosure about the authors. Strike 2.
There was only the study. No peer review. Strike 3.
So I didn't bother reading the other 2.
Either you don't know what peer reviewed means, or you do, and only pick sources that agree with you.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
Those first two were given to me by pro VRE experts. The first by the head of the Colorado Energy Office. I think the first one counts as professional research although you're correct about the lacks.
The second one, which I got from NREL, I'll agree is weak.
And the 3rd was my lame attempt that failed.
It's frustrating that there doesn't seem to be any research on this question. There should be. Although there's also almost no real research on gun violence. It seems there's some questions that don't get much support for rigorous research.
And so we're left with the amateurish attempts by a software engineer with a Physics degree. And not having the time or money to perform original research, doing the best I can with what data exists.
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u/drangryrahvin 13d ago
Dude, there is a MASSIVE amount of research. You just don't like what it says!
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u/DavidThi303 13d ago
Provide me one. Just one. I've had a ton of people say what you just said. But the only actual research anyone has ever provided me are those two links I provided you above.
If there truly is a massive amount of research on this question it should be easy to find. Maybe you'll have better luck than me.
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u/drangryrahvin 13d ago
Or, yaknow, use google scholar instead of being a dick?
You made a post that said I’m right and here is zero evidence (in the OP) now PROVE ME WRONG PLEBS!” And now you wonder why people aren’t engaging? Were you raised in isolation?
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u/DavidThi303 13d ago
I'm sorry but you were the 18th person to tell me there's lots of research and all anyone ever gave me was the two I provided you that we both agree are not terribly useful.
So yeah, I'm a bit short when told that as I assumed, incorrectly, that you would be the 19th. Sorry.
As to the study, they are heavily using pumped hydro for energy storage, which is a good solution. If they can build enough. They appear confident they can.
BTW - keep in mind that 90% of Australia's population is located within 50 miles of the coast along the Southeast coast & Cairns in the West. So very different from the U.S. in terms of distances. And 90% of the population lives in the same climate band which tends to be sunny year round.
I think they've got good numbers for most of what they do. They're very conservative on nuclear costs and I disagree but they could well be right. The one thing I think they're really off base on is H2. I don't see that ever making financial sense.
Their solution is batteries, pumped hydro and gas peaking plants. That makes sense. With that said, I don't think they disagree with my numbers aside from being pretty conservative about nuclear. From the report.
If the system were to also build the equivalent capacity of storage, peaking and other flexible plant then the system now has around four times the capacity needed compared to a coal dominated system.
This is expensive, even with pumped hydro
the NEM needs to have 0.28kW to 0.41kW storage capacity for each kW of variable renewable generation installed
And the biggie is of course the battery costs. They're estimating...
Battery durations of 24 hours and 48 hours have been added for the first time. None of these capital costs provide enough information to be able to say one technology is more competitive than the other. Capital costs are only one factor. Additional cost factors include energy input costs (where not already included), round trip efficiency, operating costs and design life.
and...
Storage capital costs in $/kW increase as storage duration increases because additional storage duration adds costs without adding any additional power capacity to the project (Figure 3-4). Additional storage duration is most costly for batteries.
You can claim this study shows VREs + storage is cheaper than nuclear. But there's a number of assumptions in this that could well be wrong. And they apparently can add lots of pumped hydro while we don't have a lot of places left to do that in the U.S.
And keep in mind that - Trouble down under: Australia’s electricity market is the most volatile in the world. Their efforts to date do not instill a lot of confidence.
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u/rosier9 14d ago
A big driver of wind energy has been the production tax credit.
Lawrence Laboratory puts wind OPEX at $40/kw yr (~$11/MWh). So $56m for a 1400MW farm.
https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/opex_paper_final.pdf
Could someone please explain to me why all the green energy efforts in the U.S. are building wind instead of nuclear?
It's almost like they're forced to use US costs for nuclear. Vogtle wasn't the only US nuclear project to face skyrocketing costs. Even Nuscale's UAMPS was up to $20000/kW in 2023.
This note from NuScale UAMPS (beginning of 2023) is why you can't keep using Bakarah as a realistic price:
UAMPS says increases in the producer price index in the past two years have raised the cost of:
Fabricated steel plate by 54%
Carbon steel piping by 106%
Electrical equipment by 25%
Fabricated structural steel by 70%
Copper wire and cable by 32%
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u/stewartm0205 14d ago
And yet people who are responsible for these decisions choose wind. Why? Because, based on what happens in the real world nuclear in the US takes $20 billion over 20 years to get done. This is also the experience in Europe.
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u/ViewTrick1002 15d ago
So you make every single attempt imaginable at stacking the numbers in favor of nuclear power and still find out that wind power is cheaper. Completely ignoring for example capital costs.
Regarding the lifetime difference. The lifetime difference is a standard talking point that sounds good if you don't understand economics but doesn't make a significant difference. It's the latest attempt to avoid having to acknowledge the completely bizarre costs of new nuclear built power through bad math.
CSIRO with GenCost included it in this year's report.
Because capital loses so much value over 80 years ("60 years + construction time) the only people who refer to the potential lifespan are people who don't understand economics. In this, we of course forget that the average nuclear power plant was in operation for 26 years before it closed.
Table 2.1:
https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25ConsultDraft_20241205.pdf
The difference a completely absurd lifespan makes is a 10% cost reduction. When each plant requires tens of billions in subsidies a 10% cost reduction is still... tens of billions in subsidies.
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u/Moldoteck 14d ago
Barakah is estimated at 32bn. So 8bn/unit The cheaper units are chinese builds and japanese abwr in 2.5-3bn ballpark Imo such comparison doesn't say a lot about total system costs. Nuclear cf is about 90% and usually the 10% are planned.
Wind cf is about 1/3 of that but you heavily rely on random weather, so you need a full fledged backup ready to go at any time and you can't even shut it down fully to be able to ramp up quickly. You also have higher costs for transmission and sometimes curtailment. But whats worse is lower capture rate at higher deployment rate, leading to lower profits that are usually compensated with cfd/feed in variations. The compensation may get lower over time but due to lower capture rate you'll pay it more frequently which ain't cheap. DE eeg which covers mostly cfd's was 18bn in 2024. It's expected to reach 23bn in 2029 despite ending high cfd contracts for early solar and wind
There are many factors that could change the calculation. Nuclear cost recently is drive up a lot by delays. French FLA3 as a foak did cost itself about 13bn, but due to delays and borrow rate, the cumulated expense is 23bn.
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u/Silly_Actuator4726 14d ago
Wind power produces TINY amounts of power (you can't run a city on wind power), and requires MASSIVE battery capacity since wind in intermittent. There are only a few places in the nation where the wind blows enough - and govt subsidies are high enough - to make it feasible. Nuclear produces massive amounts of power, whenever it is needed. It is only expensive because it was SET UP that way - the Ruling Class didn't want it replacing fossil fuels, so they intentionally crippled the industry with techniques like allowing activist non-profits to delay/prevent approval, and add billions to the cost, with frivolous lawsuits (often secretly funded by Big Oil).
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u/Fiction-for-fun2 15d ago
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
Sorry, I forgot about that. I posted this here because it was the last of the 3 posts I made to r/energy that got me banned there. I had saved it off. Forgot that I then posted to r/nuclear and r/windturbine.
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u/Fiction-for-fun2 14d ago
No worries, I just don't know how many times you can ask the same question and pretend that dispatchable generation and intermittent generation or the same.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
If Colorado goes 90% wind + solar + batteries (with 5% bio & hydro, 5% gas), then isn't it by definition that the wind & solar are being used for baseload? Not dispatchable, not intermittent, but baseload?
If there's a way at 90% of our power production they can also be intermittent, can you explain that?
thanks
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u/blunderbolt 13d ago
If Colorado goes 90% wind + solar + batteries (with 5% bio & hydro, 5% gas), then isn't it by definition that the wind & solar are being used for baseload?
In that scenario wind and solar are primarily covering baseload demand, but even at those penetration shares they are still intermittent.
"Baseload" in the electricity sector can refer to one of two things: Baseload demand, the minimum level of demand on the grid on any given day, or baseload power plants, which are plants that are technically or economically optimized to run at high capacity factors(usually coal or nuclear) and as a result are traditionally used to cover baseload demand. In grids with 90% VRE shares there are no baseload power plants because all your generation capacity is either intermittent or highly flexible, even while covering baseload demand.
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u/Fiction-for-fun2 14d ago
The thing about Rube Goldberg machines is that you can definitely build them.
The question becomes should you build them.
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u/DavidThi303 14d ago
That's the point I'm trying to get across in Colorado. I am going to use your quote - it encapsulates the insanity of VRE for baseload so well.
thanks - dave
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u/Ember_42 15d ago
The fundamental challenge in a wind heavy system is that the variability is much more 'stochastic' than solar. And all the serious models of temperate climatesnhave more wind dependence than solar for VRE heavy systems. Even Australia (CRISO) has at least as much wind as solar in energy terms. So wind is limited to the 'fuel saving value' OR you need a backup for most of your load value, via alternate generation or very long duration storage (days to weeks, depending on the depth). Since Dunkenflaute type patterns can span continent scales, and can be driven by extreme cold events (like after a polar vortex moves in, the wind tends to die off). The only energy limited, clean generation that really pairs well with this aspect is resevoir hydro. Wind makes a good resevoir extender. I expect solar to overperform and wind to underperformed the expectations/ requirements for a VRE centric deep decarbonised energy system.