How does that compare to other existing energy generation sources today?
* Wind: $ 32/MWh
* Solar: $ 43/MWh
* Natural Gas: $ 52/MWh
* Coal: $ 65/MWh
* Geothermal: $ 82/MWh
* Biomass: $ 82/MWh
* Nuclear: $ 97/MWh
* Solar+Storage: $ 119/MWh
* Diesel: $ 212/MWh
[1]: https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-...
[2]: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~vsmith/docs/renewables_sgc...
That % will probably go up as the demand side of the market reacts to variable pricing. We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible in terms of demand shifting.
There is value not releasing radioactivity in the air from the natural isotopes you find in coal for example too.
There is value not having the fish or the cow you eat contaminated by waste.
There is value in not having your crops destroyed by acidic water.
There is value in having a living coral reef and not being dissolved.
I can certify there is value in all of that because I was raised in a coal extracting place. Probably you only know about the part of switching a lever on and off.
Additionally, the combined cycle power plants that allow for super efficient and cheap fossil fuel plants do not respond quickly to turning on and off; it takes time.
With solar and wind, you can choose to not generate but you can't choose to generate if the sun isn't shining. For cheap fossil fuel electricity, you need to plan out a day in advance. It's not so easy to spin a nuclear plant up and down.
Peaker plants, that are truly dispatchable, are about the cost of solar+storage on that chart these days.
Obviously there are geographic differences, but the trendline for solar is impressive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
If there's a mix of say, 50% Wind + Solar, and 50% from stored solar (or wind), then at worst that's an average electricity cost of $83/MWh. That's already cheaper than nuclear, which I didn't think would happen this decade.
Natural gas produces .61 tons of CO2 per MWh [1]. If you take Exxon's planned tax amount of $80/ton of CO2, that would put natural gas at $101/MHw. This is Exxon's estimate, so I think we can safely say that $80/ton is a lower bound on the true cost of fossil fuels to the rest of the economy.
So in reality, renewables+storage are already cheaper than fossil fuels. We're just subsidizing fossil fuels by ignoring their negative externality.
There is always a baseline need for energy, seems most sensible to me this comes from a modern, nuclear source and not the relics we rely on today.
The real reason to consider nuclear is that there is more than construction cost, there is also fuel cost. The fuel over the life of the nuclear plant is considerably cheaper than for a gas plant. Of course, even that isn't the whole story: I don't know how total operating cost and negative externalities balance out.
EDIT: I misread; it appears that those numbers are total cost per MWh produced, not construction cost. In that case, it appears that gas definitely beats nuclear hands down (ignoring the CO2 problem).
Yes, which is why you would want it for base load rather than responsive. If we invested in nuclear technology rather than condemn it all as a terrible venture we could produce far cheaper and cleaner nuclear plants.
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California is being shut down in a few years mostly due to environmental concerns but also in part because it can't be spun up and down easily to adjust for the output of the state's increasing mix of fluctuating solar and wind production.
We're headed towards a mix that looks like almost entirely renewables and peakers, or maybe eventually renewables and storage, if things like the tesla battery installation work out.