Technology

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[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

My problem with nuclear is both the high cost and, somewhat counterintuitively, the very long life cycles to spread that high cost. The economics only make sense if the plant runs for 75 years, which represents an opportunity cost of displacing whatever might be available in 25 or 50 years.

A solar plant planned in 2025 might be online in 2027, and decommissioned in 2047, replaced with whatever technology/economics are available then. But a new nuclear reactor bakes in the costs for 80+ years, to be paid by ratepayers who haven't been born yet.

So if in 2050 a 2030-constructed nuclear plant is still imposing costs of $66/MWh on ratepayers, to finance the interest and construction costs from 25 years earlier, will that be competitive with the state of solar/wind/batteries/hydrothermal at that time? Given the past trend lines, it seems economically foolish to lock in today's prices for the next 80 years.

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[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

Except there is also inflation that in the U.S. for the past 75 years has been 3.8% so the cost of $66 per MWh would be the equivalent purchasing power cost of about $4.85 by the end of the plant life. The long lifecycle is good for environmental purposes as well as you don’t need to do constant construction and constantly dispose of rare earth metals and concrete

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[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

No, LCOE is an aggregated sum of all the cash flows, with the proper discount rates applied based on when that cash flow happens, complete with the cost of borrowing (that is, interest) and the changes in prices (that is, inflation). The rates charged to the ratepayers (approved by state PUCs) are going to go up over time, with inflation, but the effect of that on the overall economics will also be blunted by the time value of money and the interest paid on the up-front costs in the meantime.

When you have to pay up front for the construction of a power plant, you have to pay interest on those borrowed funds for the entire life cycle, so that steadily increasing prices over time is part of the overall cost modeling.