How much would it cost to build a new reactor with comparable power output?
*Many reactors started construction in the 70s and were finished in the 80s or 90s, plus Watts Bar Unit 2 which was started in 1972 and finished in 2016 for a total of $5 billion. The US also of course builds many naval reactors.
The main problem is that things cost more per unit if you do them less. The first new reactor in decades is going to be stupid expensive because you have new people doing it who are learning things for the first time, which often means doing them over again, which is expensive. And then we didn't even get to see if the second unit at Vogtle could improve on the first because then COVID hit and made everything cost even more.
Whereas the interesting question is, how much do they each cost if you build them at scale?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
Whereas what you want is multiple companies building these things on an assembly line, where you can plop the components out of a truck already approved and ready to be turned on.
> Whereas what you want is multiple companies building these things on an assembly line, where you can plop the components out of a truck already approved and ready to be turned on.
How many trillions in handouts from tax payer money to get there?
Renewables and storage deliver that dream unsubsidized today.
The modern US where a negligible number of reactors are being built, or the US in the period of the regulatory changes that accompanied the Cold War when everyone was afraid of nuclear bombs and then The China Syndrome and Chernobyl?
If you want it to mean anything you need data from when the regulatory environment isn't increasing in hostility over time during the measurement period.
> How many trillions in handouts from tax payer money to get there?
It's a loan at an interest rate higher than the government itself is paying to issue the bonds, i.e. the taxpayer is making money from this.
Also, the main issue isn't funding it, it's making it cost less, e.g. by moving most of the approvals from being needed at each and every site to the factory where components are being mass produced.
> Renewables and storage deliver that dream unsubsidized today.
Then why does the price per kWh that consumers are paying keep going up instead of down?
> It's a loan at an interest rate higher than the government itself is paying to issue the bonds, i.e. the taxpayer is making money from this.
This assumes the risk is zero. Which given e.g. Virgil C. Summer is not the case.
> Then why does the price per kWh that consumers are paying keep going up instead of down?
Depends on where you are in the world. In Europe most of the recent price increases are coming from fossil energy becoming expensive.
The ETS system is making coal power expensive and running a peaker on LNG is extremely expensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...
So now we're seeing large swings from extremely cheap renewable electricity to expensive fossil based.
With that said, while it doesn't provide numbers, the article does say the refurbishment (costing $1.6 billion, estimated) will be cheaper than a new build. It'll also likely be much faster, projected to open in 2028.
A quick google search puts construction costs of new nuclear of a Unit 2 size in the $5-10 billion range. 3 Mile Island itself was constructed for $2 billion in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars. All in all, refurbishing sounds like a good bargain compared to a green field build.
Apart from the obvious labour costs difference , theres also the skills at scale.Chinese have been on a continous buildout of new plants , so at this point they have designs/skilled teams for whom this is another routine at this point(i think 30+ under construction concurrently).The US builds are almost artisinal at this point.
And yeah at $1B , given prior examples , it expect them to be late and costs to baloon.Unless they use this as a template to upskill/retrain a workforce that will lead a new buildout so economies of scale take over and put downward pressure on the costs.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/22/climate/china...