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Dec. 4th, 2023|12:39 pm |
"Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Dollar. Nuclear new-build costs have been on the rise for many years (see previous WNISR editions). Just in the past five years, U.S. solar and wind prices fell by two-thirds, putting new nuclear power out of the money by about 5–10-fold (see Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment). Nuclear new-build costs many times more per kWh, so it buys many times less climate solution per dollar than major low-carbon competitors—efficiency, wind and solar. Newer technologies do not change this: in the latest nuclear designs, so-called Gen-III+ reactors, ~78–87 percent of total costs is for the non-nuclear part. Thus, if the other ~13–22 percent, the “nuclear island”, were free, the rest of the plant would still be grossly uncompetitive with renewables or efficiency. That is, even free steam from any kind of fuel or fission is not good enough, because the rest of the plant costs too much. The business case for modern renewables is so convincing to investors that the latest official U.S. forecast foresees 45 GW of renewable additions from mid-2019 to mid-2022, vs. net retirements of 7 GW for nuclear and 17 GW for coal." p24
"Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow. It meets no technical or operational need that these low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper, and faster. Even sustaining economically distressed reactors saves less carbon per dollar and per year than reinvesting its avoidable operating cost (let alone its avoidable new subsidies) into cheaper efficiency and renewables" |
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