Probably a third of that cost is tied up in NRA certification with 32 different federal and state licensing bodies, planning, EIS statements which average 6 years to write, and the political approval process.
While you’re waiting those six to 10 years to get your project started, you’re going to see a construction cost inflation rate of what, 25 to 30%?
I was half joking, although cost escalation would actually account for a major portion of the cost increase.
We did a new building project. Started during 2021, and by the time we received the final bids costs had increased 50%. All within 6 months. We’re at 10% cost escalation this year alone.
Imagine 6 years of that.
However, it also sounded like these companies had no clue what they were doing. Similar to California High Speed Rail.
Of course. That happens. Luckily, we have countries like China with less red tape to use to measure. They’ve been building a lot of nuclear and solar. Their end-to-end solar looks like around $750M per GW (possibly including storage? Not sure. About $2.2B for a 3.3GW plant). Looks like they’re spending about $5B per GW of nuclear.
Sorry I don’t have the solar reference anymore. I was building a math equation for another comment and realized they weren’t talking price, so scrapped it without thinking.
Since those numbers seem to match US figures, I think people in the Western World forget that a lot of bid cost increases or “escalations” are due to the fact that companies try to low-bid to win the contract, knowing every little inconvenience will require a cost increase. It evens out more than people want to admit.
Yeah I hate dealing with that. Then they send back every design decision to be reopened, resulting in literally years the meetings to decide which source for which equipment, all the while the Costco up to the point where if we just built a damn thing 5 years ago then it would have been cheaper than trying to go with a low bid now. Not to mention years of delays.
Seems an odd question. Since I’m not sure what you’re getting at, my answer might or might not be of value.
The only thing I know offhand about the breakdown is 60% of the total lifetime cost of electricity is in construction costs, a number that is disgustingly through the roof and why using nuclear power for the whole world is unfeasible. It’s that bad.
The rest is “day to day costs” which are far lower with nuclear than other forms of energy. Which would be great if it didn’t cost so much to build a nuclear plant.
Countries with a lower PPP would get the lifetime cost closer to parity, if a handful of project experts etc are brought in at Western rates and local labour is used for the build and operation. If the federal system of government for that country streamlines the registration process while mandating key critical compliance steps (for instance, full test and verification on the containment system but not the light switch in the control room toilets, which I have read is an issue with the US regs) it would seem that non-us countries would be able to do nuclear cheaper per MWh.
Cheaper than $140, or cheaper than Solar? Someone just got back to me with claims of lower Nuclear numbers… and even in those claims, Nuclear simply could not get anywhere close to Solar.
How much of that $140 is labour?
Probably a third of that cost is tied up in NRA certification with 32 different federal and state licensing bodies, planning, EIS statements which average 6 years to write, and the political approval process.
While you’re waiting those six to 10 years to get your project started, you’re going to see a construction cost inflation rate of what, 25 to 30%?
Care to substantiate that the red tape amounts to more than 100 years worth of the same MWH of solar? Or is that just your gut feeling?
Also note, even if the construction cost were 30% inflated, nuclear is still losing handily to solar by the figures I cited.
I was half joking, although cost escalation would actually account for a major portion of the cost increase.
We did a new building project. Started during 2021, and by the time we received the final bids costs had increased 50%. All within 6 months. We’re at 10% cost escalation this year alone.
Imagine 6 years of that.
However, it also sounded like these companies had no clue what they were doing. Similar to California High Speed Rail.
Of course. That happens. Luckily, we have countries like China with less red tape to use to measure. They’ve been building a lot of nuclear and solar. Their end-to-end solar looks like around $750M per GW (possibly including storage? Not sure. About $2.2B for a 3.3GW plant). Looks like they’re spending about $5B per GW of nuclear.
Sorry I don’t have the solar reference anymore. I was building a math equation for another comment and realized they weren’t talking price, so scrapped it without thinking.
Since those numbers seem to match US figures, I think people in the Western World forget that a lot of bid cost increases or “escalations” are due to the fact that companies try to low-bid to win the contract, knowing every little inconvenience will require a cost increase. It evens out more than people want to admit.
Yeah I hate dealing with that. Then they send back every design decision to be reopened, resulting in literally years the meetings to decide which source for which equipment, all the while the Costco up to the point where if we just built a damn thing 5 years ago then it would have been cheaper than trying to go with a low bid now. Not to mention years of delays.
Agreed. It doesn’t end up saving a penny, but it definitely leads to greased wheels along the way and richer politicians.
Seems an odd question. Since I’m not sure what you’re getting at, my answer might or might not be of value.
The only thing I know offhand about the breakdown is 60% of the total lifetime cost of electricity is in construction costs, a number that is disgustingly through the roof and why using nuclear power for the whole world is unfeasible. It’s that bad.
The rest is “day to day costs” which are far lower with nuclear than other forms of energy. Which would be great if it didn’t cost so much to build a nuclear plant.
Countries with a lower PPP would get the lifetime cost closer to parity, if a handful of project experts etc are brought in at Western rates and local labour is used for the build and operation. If the federal system of government for that country streamlines the registration process while mandating key critical compliance steps (for instance, full test and verification on the containment system but not the light switch in the control room toilets, which I have read is an issue with the US regs) it would seem that non-us countries would be able to do nuclear cheaper per MWh.
Cheaper than $140, or cheaper than Solar? Someone just got back to me with claims of lower Nuclear numbers… and even in those claims, Nuclear simply could not get anywhere close to Solar.