I keep hearing that “Nuclear is too expensive”.
To which there ought be two immediate responses:
1. But it’s a climate emergency! Does it really matter what it costs? After all, we’re willing to subsidise Rooftop Solar across the world through high mandated Feed-in-Tariffs, making it the most expensive form of renewable energy. But, we do it. Because: looming climate catastrophe. Why single out Nuclear -- a reliable carbon-free source -- for being “too expensive"? (Disclosure: we have Rooftop Solar on our house here in Hong Kong).
2. You have to consider the total costs. Not just the Upfront Costs. As the chart above says “Upfront costs do not paint a complete picture”.
The whole picture is “Levelised Cost of Energy” or LCOE. The US Department of Energy explains it in this short paper. In simple terms it is: Upfront costs PLUS ongoing costs DIVIDED by Electricity Output in kWh.
Consider all that and Nuclear comes out amongst the cheapest forms. Note, in the chart below, that “nuclear” has been snuck in at the end, as the paper is mainly about renewables, but it’s there and it puts the lie to the charge that “nuclear is too expensive”. It’s not. Not only is it not: over the life of a nuclear plant’s production Nuclear power is amongst the very cheapest forms of electricity generation.
The cost -- the levelised cost -- of Nuclear is below that of the most efficient Solar, and about the same as the cheapest form of Wind power, circled above. This gives lie to the claim we often hear that “solar and wind” are the cheapest forms of electricity”. Well, sort of, but Nuclear is in there as well. Not “very expensive”, but “amongst the cheapest”. According to LCOE. According to the Department of Energy itself.
I’ve posted elsewhere about how Nuclear is amongst the
very safest and very cleanest of generation options, despite the scaremongering of the Greens.
And yet -- ignoring the evidence of cost, safety and cleanness -- governors like Gavin Newsome of California, under pressure from the Greens, is closing down the few remaining Nuclear Plants in California, plants that have decades of useful lie ahead of them. It’s madness.
And as Germany
reopens shuttered coal stations, because -- again! -- the Greens shut down their perfectly operational Nuclear power stations. It’s madness. BTW, this is not “with the benefit of hindsight”. We all knew at the time this was a silly and dangerous policy. Only
Mutti Merkel and the Greens were in the dark. Now they’re going to be literally in the dark!
