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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s to c/technology

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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The lifetime cost of of nuclear (build, running + clean-up) divided by the amount of electricity created is incredibly high. This report from csiro doesn't include large scale nuclear but does include projected costs for small modular reactors +solar and wind. Generally large reactors come out behind smr especially in future projections.

https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/energy-data-modelling/gencost

Note the "wind and solar pv combined" "variable with integration costs" which is the cost accounting for storage, transmission etc. It's not that high (at least up to the 90% of the grid modelled for 2030). The best end of the nuclear estimate is double the cost of that. The reasons that the storage costs etc. Are not as high as you may intuitively expect are explained in that report.

Maybe there is a place for nuclear in that last 10%, but not in less than that. Also as far as rolling it out quickly, look at how long this last nuclear plant took to build from planning to construction being complete.

I think that it is possible to manage the cleanup of nuclear and to make it safe, but it's all just very expensive. To make everyone happy with the transition off fossil fuels it needs to be cost competitive and renewables are, nuclear isn't.

[–] UnPassive 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe Australia's grid is 90% ready for solar, I've heard they're pushing for full renewable in 2 States. But the USA's isn't ready.

Again, I understand that new installations of solar power plants are cheaper than nuclear. My points against solar are:

its footprint (solar farms outside every town/city)
its lack of power generation during night (batteries aren't cheap and don't last long, new tech will help but doesn't exist yet)
how quickly output changes due to weather. This is extremely hard for the grid to adjust to. The best solution is filling gaps with natural gas (methane) because it starts up fast. Methane is a potent greenhosue gas and it's supply chain is extremely leaky so that stinks.

Meanwhile points agaisnt nuclear are

cost
waste

Both of which seem like much simpler problems to solve:

subsidize (like renewables)
store on site, reprocess, or build a storage facility (last point being expensive, but solving the problem completely). Reprocessing is my favorite choice.