Seems entirely too little too late. We need enough of these to power US infrastructure and electric transportation ASAP.
Australia has long debated taking the world's nuclear waste, numerous commissions have found it feasible and safe. The community is overwhelmingly against it though.
Compared to runaway global warming, even widespread radiation poisoning seems trivial. And such poisoning is both hypothetical and extremely unlikely to be widespread.
We need a change in a number of habits. We need actual leadership, and not only gov types. Etc.
Nukes are the easy short term way out. The issue is what that means over the long term and how it impacts the other vectors in entity. of this problem.
Without a wake up call we'll continue to mindlessly zombie on, as we have been. Nukes __might__ slow that (but only if they don't also create a false sense of overconfidence). However, they're not going to alter the course. They alone are not going to change the end.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
Another consequence is that these reactors can use most of our existing stockpile of nuclear waste as fuel. It's the only technology that can actually reduce our waste stockpile instead of just storing it somewhere.
Storage for 300 years is generally considered a solved problem. I think the basic idea is to encase the waste in blocks of glass and bury them somewhere.
As for the waste, that is a problem, and it’s entirely solvable. Much easier to solve than raging forest fires and the growing inhospitablity of climate change.
Shortage? No. But energy could always be cheaper.
Cost wise, however, i agree nuclear is late to the party.
In 2018, we had large contracts for solar(+storage!) at 3cent/kw (in the US, Mexico and Saudi Arabia).
European new nuclear came in at 15c/kw.
Without storage, renewables are already close to or below 2 cents/kWh (unsubsidized). Can nuclear startups make generating units as fast as automated fabs can spit out solar panels?
Presumably, both get cheaper as you make more, but anyone can make batteries and ship them around the world with little notice. Tesla’s Hornsdale Power Reserve system was built in 90 days. I don’t know of any nuclear plants that get built faster than 10 years.
And the Brits are demonstrating just how woefully optimistic costs, build quality, and schedules can be even with that kind of protracted delivery expectation :
https://jeremyleggett.net/2018/08/22/why-the-uk-nuclear-rena...
If you're familiar with dispatch stacks, you know that 3c/kw is REALLY attractive. Regulation or no regulation, I don't think you're gonna get down to 2c or 1c with a new nuclear plant.
Maybe I'm wrong, and one day someone will figure out how to build SUPER cheap nuclear plants?
But I doubt it.
Best I would think they could do is some sort of hybrid system that uses nuclear generation, and then storage via a conventional hydro storage system or something maybe? I'd have to do the math on that. But yeah... 2c? That's very hard to do.
Doesnt suprise - gallon of gas in most european countries (sold by liters and funny thing - you first pump then pay!) is about 40% more than same amount in USA. it has been like this forever and doesnt look like will ever change.
They can claim this plausibly for two reasons: first, they can build a MUCH smaller containment building, due to lack of water or other volatiles in the nuclear island. Second, their design isolates the turbines from the nuclear island with a molten salt "thermal battery". This allows some dispatchability in their output, but more importantly it means turbine trips have no effect on reactor stability, which means non-nuclear-grade turbines can be used. This is apparently a very large cost savings.
[And yes, I know some designs are theoretically not able to melt/blow up]
The nuclear capacity factor, on the other hand, is rather high. Upwards of 90%, and sometimes even upwards of 100% (due to the powerplants being able to produce more energy than they were designed for).
If you factor that in, a nuclear plant has about a 4.5x capacity compared to a solar plant, meaning you'd have to spend 13.5c/kw for solar with the same capacity.
Of course, this varies greatly based on where you are. In sunny climates, solar's capacity is more like 30%, while in northern climates, it can be 15%. And I'd imagine the cost of new nuclear very much depends on regulations - in the US, it might as well be infinite.
£100+ billion in 2013 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/23/britain-...
£161 billion in 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170516093449/https://www.gov.u...
£234 billion in 2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision...
... and counting.
Almost no one cares if your desktop computer can last 40 years. And PV is improving so fast that making it last 40 years would be nearly as pointless.
And nuclear does not improve in a "slow paced", I don't know where you got that impression, there's been a lot of innovations on the last 10 years.
I believe the .03 figure for the solar plants was $/kW and therefore had no bearing on total energy generated.
I think you would need a solar plant that incorporated energy storage to deliver nameplate power overnight for 40 years to be making an apples to apples comparison.
Another case for the importance of specifying solar variant.
Solar thermal plants with storage (molten salt, not battery) are above 70% CF already. eg the Torresol in Spain.
This is 3cent/khw and 15 c/kwh
This means it is cost per final energy produced i.e. after taking into account capacity factors, day/night, etc
This means it is cost per final energy produced i.e. after taking into account capacity factors, day/night, etc