"...the cost to build the two nuclear units at the Vogtle Station has surpassed $34 billion—more than double original estimates."
SEVENTEEN BILLION per unit? That is staggering. That's 17 times higher than when I entered the power industry in 1973.
Good luck expanding nuclear power generation in the USA with those unit prices.
I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect that even tripling the world's nuclear power output by "mid-century" (say, 2040-2060) will be too late to make up for the insane electrification push and the insane, premature shutdown of fossil plants.
I did run some quick numbers to understand the price of this global expansion using the reported Plant Vogtle capital costs.
Capacity | GW |
---|---|
Global nuclear capacity 2023 | 371 |
Retirements by 2050 (guess 40%) | 148 |
Capacity after retirements (2050) | 223 |
Capacity goal (2050 - 3X 2023) | 1,113 |
Additions (expansion plus replace retirements) | 1,336 |
So how much will that cost?
Costs | Value | Units | |
---|---|---|---|
Vogtle 3 & 4 output (two units) | 2.5 | GW | |
Vogtle 3 & 4 price | 34 | $ billilon | |
Vogtle 3 & 4 unit price | 13.6 | $ B / GW | |
Global Expansion price | 18,170 | $B |
That is an $18 TRILLION investment.
“Countries involved are the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, South Korea, and the UAE. Officials have said increasing nuclear power in Europe would help European nations reduce dependence on oil and gas from Russia”
I guess no one told these clowns that RUZZIA is the nuclear fuel capital of the world.
The silver lining may be that huge projected electrical loads from EVs aren't going to materialize as quickly as feared, because consumers are figuring out that they're not a good idea. (Yet, maybe it'll get better in time.)
“...Tripling the world’s nuclear energy supplies by 2050 is the catalyst required to halt rising temperatures.”
* * * * * *
These are merely code words to please the feelings of all the greenies and climate alarmists out there.
Finally, there’s a sense out there that windpower and solar panels are not enough to provide the power needed.
Ford and GM’s recent decisions to tank their electric car production (because almost nobody wants these cars) also helped push thinking the right direction.
Maybe — just maybe — things are headed in the right direction.
One needs to understand how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant from planning to completion including government permits. It is quite an undertaking. 2006 - 2023 or about 17 years.
From wikipedia -
“On August 15, 2006, Southern Nuclear formally applied for an Early Site Permit (ESP) for two additional units [units 3 &4], and on March 31, 2008, submitted an application for a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL).”
This entire exercise will be fun to watch. On one side we have the Climate Greenie Weenies stopping glow-bull warming and on the other we have the Anti-Nuke Greenie Weenie crowd who thinks every nuclear plant will be 3 mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima.
Greenies eating themselves. PRICELESS!!!
Idiots.
We could have done this 30 years ago, but nooooo!
Time to re-release “The China Syndrome”? 🤣
As always, the devil is in the details.
In the US, nuclear power was pretty much only giant commercial generating stations connected to the power grid.
However the technology today *can be* different. There are “pebble bed” reactors that are much smaller, but generate less power. There are also small reactors that can only power say, an industrial district. A dozen companies are working to create a marketable one.
A fave of mine is a self contained, factory sealed reactor about the size of a shipping container. Placed in a concrete pit with a lid, it provides power for high consumption mostly residential use, for a limited period of time. When it is used up, the lid is opened, and the reactor is lifted to a flatbed truck to be returned to the manufacturer for repair and refueling, and a replacement reactor is left in its place.
I don’t care what other countries do. For the US to be strong and powerful, we need Nuclear power, enough to power the grid for say 500 million people, and use coal for smelting steel for the world, and sell to China. We can keep mining coal for our miners, and sell it to anyone we can.
The reality of renewables is starting to sink in.
Buy uranium miners.
This could very well be the final suicide. Beside having no 100,000 year safe place to store the waist. Just look at the decline in the world around us. Just think about what can happen to these things when society totally breaks down.
.
That’s the ONLY thing to come out of this Gaia worship conference that makes any sense.
“That is an $18 TRILLION investment.”
Can you give a comparative cost? You say Vogtle 3 & 4 cost about 13.6 billion per gigawatt, which is about 13.6 dollars per watt.
Is that high? An engineer told me that for nuclear plant, fuel costs are small compared to interest on the borrowed money to build it, and operation/maintenance/depreciation costs.
A comparison of total lifetime cost per kilowatt hour, nuclear versus natural gas or coal, would be interesting.
If the promises of fusion power come true in a couple—these goals will be more than met.