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Solar energy now overlaps in cost with nuclear fuel alone for "cheap" modular reactors (energy-utilities.com)

submitted 1 year ago by schroedingershat to c/[email protected]

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Uranium is $128.30/kg

After enrichment, conversion and fabrication that's $3400/kg for 4.95% fuel.

At 36-45MWd/kg and a net thermal efficiency of 25% or $12.5/MWh up front.

With a 90 month lead time (72 month fuel cycle and 18 months inventory) at 3% this is $16.2/MWh

Which some solar projects are now matching

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[–] schroedingershat 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It arrived over the last 5 years.

Additionally diurnal storage is required for nuclear to meet a variable load anyway (as an 8hr battery is $2.5/W vs $20/W for additional reactor capacity). So the comparison then becomes building the nuclear reactor to run at <25% load factor vs. filling the rest of the load with any other method.