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Comment by ViewTrick1002 | Hacker News Reader

Existing nuclear power is something to keep around as long as it is safe and needed.

The problem is that new built western nuclear power requires ~18 cents/kWh (Vogtle, FV3, HPC etc.) when running at 100% 24/7 all year around, excluding backup, transmission costs and taxes.

Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV and maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room almost the entire year. A firming new built nuclear plant with ruinously high CAPEX and acceptable OPEX is economic lunacy.

This does not even take into account that new built nuclear power requires ~15-20 years from political decision to working plants.

As soon as new built nuclear power’s costs and timelines are confronted with reality it just does not work out.

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> Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV and maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room.

In EU, the split between flats (apartments) and houses is roughly 50/50, depending on how densely populated the country is. In the US, it about 1/3 in apartments. Canada is roughly 50/50, with a slight detached-house bias.

Not that it doesn't mean houseowner vs renter. Landlords have next to zero incentive to install solar PV because renters pay for electricity. In the US about 7% of homes have solar, I don't know about EU and Canada.

Solar can't provide baseline and even in sunny SoCal, you will go back to the grid often enough that being off-the-grid isn't reasonable for the typical household.

Anyway, we still need new nuclear power plants.

Have you heard of balcony solar? Stick some storage with it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcony_solar_power

So you want a peaking nuclear plant for firming?

Vogtle costs 18 cents/kWh when running at 100% 24/7 all year around. A typical gas peaker runs at 15-25% of the time.

Running a peaking Vogtle now costs somewhere like 60-90 cents/kWh.

As soon as new built nuclear power with ruinously expensive CAPEX and acceptable OPEX hits the raw physical incentive systems of the our energy system it just becomes stupid.

> Have you heard of balcony solar? Stick some storage with it?

Sure, let me throw away everything I grow on my balcony so I can get some storage and panels. Still not going to work for me because my balcony is west facing. I have a bunch of solar-powered devices on my balcony, and metrics tell me realistically I get 2 hours of sunlight that matters a day.

Are you growing things on the outside of your balcony railing? [1]

West facing is perfect, means you get to take advantage of everyone else producing cheap power during the day and optimize your own delivery for when you are home in the late afternoon/evening.

I find it curious that the entire thought of balcony solar seems to upset you?

[1]: https://solarmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/shutterst...

I have 1kW of solar on my balcony with some storage. That's enough to satisfy a large part of my demand. On sunny days I produce 4-6kWh, depending on the season.

Where are you getting 18 cents/kWh? Lazard?

Anyway, even if that were correct numbers, it would misleading on several fronts, as the only new western reactors were unrepresentative FOAK builds, and also troubled beyond just regular FOAK status.

Furthermore, the costs tend to be calculated for the period while they are repaying the loans, so it's mostly capital costs. Once the plant is paid off, the price drops dramatically.

The average build time is currently 6.5 years, median slightly less, trend downwards.

The currently proposed handout from tax money for the French EPR2 fleet is 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans. Sum freely.

That is with the first reactor coming online 2038 with a perfectly executed project.

I suggest you stop referencing unsourced statistics when the topic at hand is new built european nuclear power.

Edit - toned it down

> I suggest you stop lying

Was this really necessary?

I asked you where you were getting the 18 cents/kWh hour from.

Which you did not answer.

And then you accuse me of referencing unsourced statistics and lying.

Hmm...

The 6.5 years figure is from here:

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

"Current european nuclear" is completely atypical and unrepresentative. The numbers are too low to be statistically significant anyhow, but on top of that they were all FOAK builds, all of a single (base) design that has been deemed too difficult to build by its manufacturer and thus discontinued, and mostly built in countries with little recent nuclear experience.

The HPC build, for example, was very explicitly intended to build up the UK nuclear industry, which was a significant part of the cost.

I think this response embodies the problem with new built nuclear power.

1. Start with ignoring the EPR2 costs.

2. Cherry-pick data that does not represent western timelines. Of course ignoring the best case for the first EPR2 reactor is 12 years if they start today.

3. Blame everything on ”FOAK”. Despite Hinkley point C being reactor 5 and 6 in the EPR series. But that is of course ”FOAK”.

4. Allude that the next UK reactor will be cheaper. Despite the projected cost for Sizewell C is £38B before even starting compared to the current projection at £42-48B for Hinkley Point C.

Sizewell C truly shows the state of new built European nuclear power. EDF is too financially weak to take on any further nuclear construction liability like a fixed price contract, and the CFD would be ruinously expensive.

Instead it is a pure cost-plus contract where an extra surcharge is added to all ratepayers as soon as construction starts having people today pay for electricity hopefully delivered 10-15 years in the future. Hiding the true all-in cost in terms the average tax payer doesn’t understand rather than a trivially understood CFD.

Like I said. As soon as new built nuclear power is confronted with reality it becomes economic and opportunity cost lunacy unless you can motivate it with for example military ambitions.

As I understand it, the technologies exist by which home owners who already have solar can draw only as much grid energy as they actually need. There are multiple uses of nuclear energy beyond home usage and there would be those who do not have access to adequate solar or wind energy. Apartment residences in large cities are one of the target segments.

Have you heard of balcony solar? Stick some storage with it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcony_solar_power

Why should industry buy extremely expensive new built nuclear power when grid based zero marginal cost renewables are available?

If they’re having worries about price fluctuations then we already have markets for electricity futures. The perfect market for stable new built nuclear power.

The problem for new built nuclear power is that they need enormous tax payer based handouts to close the gap between the price of electricity futures and production cost. Let alone making a profit.

How does industry deal with 50% of the nuclear capacity having outages for months on end like happened in France during the energy crisis?

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