This is what France tried to do with the reactor they built for Finland. There was a budget hole of a few billion and an argument/lawsuit over who would pay for it.
Nuclear costs are a hot potato.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant supply.
Contrast that to the Al Dhafra PV project also in the UAE - $1 billion for 2 GW of nameplate capacity. One can apply whatever discount is wanted to account for solar's shortcomings and it still comes out ahead when planning an energy generation portfolio. Further away from the equator a similar case can be made for wind.
The Barakah reactors will be generating 5.3 GWh from 6 pm to 8am which of course solar can't do. In that time it will deliver 14 hours X 5.3 GW ~= 75 GWh of electricity.
Capital costs for 4 hour utility scale lithium storage are expected to be $250 million per GWh by 2025. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79236.pdf
75 GWh x $250 million = ~$19 billion to get those gigawatt hours from storage.
The nameplate capacity of the solar plant to generate 75 GWh for night time use in the hours from 8 am to 6pm is 7.5 GW. To prove my point let's double that to 15 GW.
The cost of that 15 GW solar plant, based on the Al Dhafra PV plant would be $7.5 billion. Another 5 GW solar plant to deliver the same day time GWh that the reactors do...let's double that to 10 GW so another $5 billion.
So my back of the napkin calculations say that the cost to replace the Barakah reactors with solar + storage are: - $19 billion for Li-ion storage - $7.5 billion for a solar plant to charge that storage for nighttime use. - $5 billion for a solar plant to deliver (more than) equivalent daytime use.
$31.5 billion in total. Very much competitive with the nuclear option taking into account a) time to completion / general project risk b) the falling cost of storage plus the development of new options like sodium ion storage c) radioactive waste risks, solvable as they are d) security concerns - Houthi rebels fired a few missiles at the Barakah site a while back. e) construction and operational workforce skill requirements
Based on the lifetimes of these South Korean plants(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea), I'm just going to use 40 years as the lifetime for these calculations as I couldn't find any numbers for how long the UAE expects that plant to be operating regarding that operational costs of $20 billion which gives us:
Maintenance costs for solar of: 40 years x $23 billion x 2.5% = $23 billion
So now we're at a total current cost of $46 +7.5 = $53.5 billion for Solar vs. $45 billion for Nuclear.
Edit: Forgot the actual cost of the solar array that G80z said was $7.5 billion
It isnt just a matter of getting 2GW of solar and getting enough batteries to supply 2GW through the night.
Even leaving out better battery chemistries for the moment, you can use pumped hydro (even with seawater - some of the UAE’s highest mountains are near the coast) and thermal storage (you might think you don’t need it in such a hot place but you’ve still got to bake bread etc etc).
Could you provide some more info for this? My understanding was a lot of the sites that could do this, have done. If that's not the case it'd be good to see what the real picture is.
https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
Probably won't happen because batteries will be even cheaper by the time much of it is developed.
In this case, from the study:
> None of the PHES sites discussed in this study have been the subject of geological, hydrological, environmental, heritage and other studies, and it is not known whether any particular site would be suitable. The commercial feasibility of developing these sites is unknown.
There it is. Always so concerned" about whatever imaginary downside alternatives have, but completely credulous about nuclear which has failed over and over again.
You're claiming without any evidence whatsoever that at least 99% of geographically appropriate sites are unusable.
It's not a downside. It's a problem with the study.
> completely credulous about nuclear which has failed over and over again
Can you cite where I've done this?
> You're claiming without any evidence whatsoever that at least 99% of geographically appropriate sites are unusable.
And where I've done this?
In a nutshell, you put in more generators to maximise your peak generation capacity, and operate them only when required.
Valleys are useful as they provide a large volume that can be capped with relative ease.
An underground reservoir requires a large volume to be excavated (or a pre existing cave system) and a deeper chamber again for the turbines to powered by the fall .. to yet another deeper underground reservoir.
I'm not saying this is impossible, I stating that as an engineering venture (actual civil engineering not software "engineering") there are some real challenges and greater ones than using existing topography.
You're hand waving a lot away with your comment.
I'd have to imagine not. And that it might take as long to get all the batteries built and installed as it does to build a nuke plant.
If I want enough solar panels and batteries to make my house off grid I can just write a check and the stuff shows up in a few weeks. But that doesn't scale upwards without limit. Eventually the limits on global supply kick in no matter how much you want it.
Sadly, I had one months ago but I can't find it again.
The EPR have a double containement layer where EPR2 have a single one. The EPR was also an industrial demonstrator.
> supposed to be able to withstand a passenger jet collision.
Our autorithy of nuclear safety says any regular nuclear plants should be able to whistand an passanger jet collision, but added extra protection on the EPR for it: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/seg...
> Even if "they are not built to withstand such a shock without damage, nuclear power plants would offer a good resistance capacity", assures the Nuclear Safety Authority. But no evaluation exists because this type of accident was considered at the time as totally improbable.
That said, after the authorities and EDF claim to have made arrangements for the construction of the future Flamanville EPR. "The specific protection against falling aircraft called aircraft hull is a reinforced concrete structure covering the following buildings: the reactor building, two divisions of the safeguard auxiliaries building and the fuel building".
The fact remains that zero risk does not exist, as Jacques Repussard, Director General of IRSN, affirmed during his hearing before a parliamentary commission of inquiry last February: "I could not affirm under oath that in the event crash of a very large aircraft, loaded with tens of tons of fuel, the consequences of the fire would be brought under control"