It can be cheaper to run a nuclear plant than a conventional power plant, due to lower fuel costs. But what kills nuclear is the capital costs of building the plant. It takes a while to reap the reward

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bryanlarsen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm talking about capital costs, not operating costs. $3B/GW for a coal plant is about 5X as much as natgas.

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s1mplicissimus 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Does that calculation include the cost of storing the nuclear waste after use? I'd be curious to see a reference for your claim.

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Dry casting on site is fairly cheap.

The true cost of nuclear is the massive construction cost. We don't know how to solve that.

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Llamamoe 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You need to look up how much nuclear waste is actually produced. It's a minuscule amount relative to the energy produced, and it doesn't actually need more than to be transported and then encased in concrete.

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Jedd 3 days ago | parent [-]

It's not the volume of the waste that's the challenge - it's handling and storage that remain mostly unsolved.

By unsolved I mean - not convincingly solved, and certainly not yet tested over the expected duration that material needs to be safely contained.

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Llamamoe 3 days ago | parent [-]

"mostly unsolved"? It's cheap, low-maintenance, and essentially risk-free barring potential terrorism.

Even if the storage got somehow compromised(extremely unlikely), the disposal sites are distant enough from civilization and the amounts small enough that the environmental harms would still be far below tons of other manmade events.

What more do you want?

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Jedd 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

'Apart from terrorism ... or war, seismic activity, etc.'

I'm not sure where you're getting cheap from, or low-maintenance.

The above-ground stuff is locking future generations in for on-going maintenance for several centuries, perhaps longer. There's been think-tanks trying to work out how you just signpost such a place, given storage may exceed the expected lifetime of languages, and we'd want to be polite and at least contend with societal collapse.

It is hubris to observe that the many locations chosen now will remain 'distant from civilisation' for many centuries.

	▲	LtdJorge 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The casts are made to withstand a collision with a locomotive.

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oneshtein 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

We have lot of nuclear waste. Can you take it?