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I guess the Japanese don't generate 30% of their electricity from nuclear power for fun or because it's a popular choice. It's by necessity -- Japan imports 99% of its oil and has only tiny coal reserves.

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Wondering roughly what kind of cents per kilowatt hour they pay for electricity over there, I know nuclear is a lot more efficient energy generation but have no idea how this translates for the end consumer.

I'm a Tepco (Tokyo) customer. Looking at my most recent electric bill we're paying about 22 yen a kWh, or around 27 cents.

That'll probably go up with Fukushima out of commission.

Ah okay so it's not exactly the silver bullet for electricity costs, I saw that the uranium price had doubled in the past year or 2, might have something to do with it. For comparison here in Melbourne Australia we are at about 20cents per kwh, with a grid based mostly on coal fired power plants. That has jumped a great deal in recent years though, I was paying 17 a couple of years ago and just before that when I was living at home I think it was under 15.

Not really. Uranium price has very little, if any, effect on operational costs at a power plant.

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