Comment on Solar + Battery (covering 97% of demand) is now cheaper than coal and nuclear

BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• booly@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  But the other misleading part is they looked at 20 years which is close to the life cycle for solar/batteries and not even half the life of nuclear

  I think Lazard’s LCOE methodology looks at the entire life cycle of the power plant, specific to that power plant. So they amortize solar startup/decommissioning costs across the 20 year life cycle of solar, but when calculating LCOE for nuclear, they spread the costs across the 80 year life cycle of a nuclear plant.

  Nuclear is just really, really expensive. Even if plants required no operating costs, the up front costs are so high that it represents a significant portion of the overall operating costs for any given year.

  The Vogtle debacle in Georgia cost $35 billion to add 2 MW of capacity. They’re now projecting that over the entire 75 year lifespan the cost of the electricity will come out to be about $0.17 to $0.18 per kilowatt hour.

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  • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nuclear is just really, really expensive.

    Subsidize it like you do oil, there, solved.

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    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And do the same for solar and batteries, so we can stop using fossil fuels for electricity ASAP.

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Vogtle’s numbers are incredibly biased considering they made an entire design and then had to redo it halfway through that’s not a realistic cost that can be expected for future projects. We also have vogtles design be approved now so that new plants can be built for a fraction of the cost. Also where did you see they did amortization of solar?

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    • booly@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Also where did you see they did amortization of solar?

      I’m just familiar with Lazard’s LCOE methodology. The linked paper talks about LCOE, so that’s just how that particular cost analysis works.

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  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    2gw, but yes, before any operational/maintenance costs that is $17.5/watt. Solar is under $1/watt, and sunny AF.

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• Tabula_stercore@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  they looked at 20 years which is close to the life cycle for solar/batteries and not even half the life of nuclear

  Brother, with some luck a nuclear plant is in construction stage after those 20 years

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    China has been doing them in around 7 years from groundbreaking to grid connection and is trying to get that down to 5 years with their bailong power plant as they are developing an experienced work force and actually have experience making the parts

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• BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Fair point but nuclear will probably always have the disadvantage of initial cost and time to market. It’s a huge risk for investors and public officials.

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    That is the main criticism of nuclear, it should hopefully get better with Westinghouse’s AP1000 receiving full approval and being built all across China so as long as we continue to use the same design it can start to be mass produced instead of making all the parts as one offs that are much more expensive and time consuming

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    • booly@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Vogtle added 2 AP1000 reactors for $35 billion. Future deployments might be cheaper, but there’s a long way to go before it can compete with pretty much any other type of power generation.

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      • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        They had to switch halfway through which is what added the cost that’s not a realistic cost per reactor

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• Nighed@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  From the dot graph, it implies that las Vegas is one of the worse options? And Birmingham is somehow best?

  Not sure I’m reading that right?

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    My understanding of that graph is how do you flatten peak energy demands, Birmingham is flat and throughout the year because you have some parts of the year where you need very little battery capacity and other parts where you need a lot. Las Vegas basically always needs a lot because of how hot it gets they end up with huge amounts of peak energy usage

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• humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  solar today is warranteed for 30 years. No reason to replace before 60 years compared to adding more beside it.

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Batteries and panels degrade over time. So if you are trying to maintain a specific amount of power you would need to keep investing in order to maintain the same amount of power generation

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    • GreenCrunch@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I mean there are ongoing costs with any form of power generation. Obviously there’s fuel costs for most, but even other renewables have maintenance costs. You’ll also need to keep investing anyway as power demands increase over time. So newer solar installations eventually replace the old.

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      • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Yes, what I am saying is that cost is being shown for nuclear and not shown for solar due to using an intentionally small window of time. It’s like comparing an ICE to an EV and talking about the refueling costs of gas and treating electricity like it’s free.

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