The reason the USA shut down old nuclear power plants decades ago was because they were very expensive. Some of those old reactors were recently acquired by Microsoft in the expectation that rising power demand (and therefor price) would make them viable again.
I’m sure the EU is expecting similar shifts in financial viability as the Russian aggression drags on, eliminating natural gas imports availability.
Because cost of megawatt-hour via nuclear power plant decreases every year. EVERY YEAR.
Nothing in that table is dropping every year.
Capital cost spiked a decade ago, and are now still higher than 2002 levels. Fuel spiked at a similar time and is now back to 2004 levels (but not as low as 2007). Similar story for operating costs.
Basically it looks like 2008 sent nuclear cost through the roof, and it’s only just recovering to start of the century prices.
At the top it states these are the costs in USD per MWh after adjusting for inflation.
As you can see, the Operating Costs did in fact spike between 2004 and 2012, but then continued to decrease every year from 2015 to 2020. The Total Generating Costs saw the same spike sometime after 2007 but again went back on the trend of decreasing after 2015.
You’ve made an excellent point of arguing semantics. I concede that “every year” isn’t as accurate as saying “most years except for the spike in 2004-2012”.
Falling back to the level they were before the 2008 financial crisis isn’t indicative of the technology advancing and a general downward trend. It’s just the market normalising.
If we had been not investing in nuclear plants only whilst costs were sky high I’d think you’d have an argument, but we’ve been avoiding nuclear investments for a lot longer than that.
There have been a lot of technological advances, though. Maybe you just never noticed, but we’ve had advances in fuel assembly and coolants that allow operation at lower temperature ranges and smaller reactors.
In the future, potential new Thorium Reactors, almost all of which currently operational are for research purposes, could provide another huge leap forward as they produce less plutonium than other standard Uranium isotopes.
Plus, our technology for containing and handling plasma has grown in leaps and bounds, although most of that technology seems to be closely guarded in China so I don’t have high hopes for it.
…and because the older plants are simply written off already. If you already recouped the building costs, you can charge based on just the running cost.
Thats what happens when they become more financially viable. Shouldn’t really surprise anybody.
Why would they be more financially viable now?
Because cost of megawatt-hour via nuclear power plant decreases every year. EVERY YEAR.
https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/reports-and-briefs/Nuclear-Costs-in-Context-2021.pdf
The reason the USA shut down old nuclear power plants decades ago was because they were very expensive. Some of those old reactors were recently acquired by Microsoft in the expectation that rising power demand (and therefor price) would make them viable again.
I’m sure the EU is expecting similar shifts in financial viability as the Russian aggression drags on, eliminating natural gas imports availability.
Nothing in that table is dropping every year.
Capital cost spiked a decade ago, and are now still higher than 2002 levels. Fuel spiked at a similar time and is now back to 2004 levels (but not as low as 2007). Similar story for operating costs.
Basically it looks like 2008 sent nuclear cost through the roof, and it’s only just recovering to start of the century prices.
At the top it states these are the costs in USD per MWh after adjusting for inflation.
As you can see, the Operating Costs did in fact spike between 2004 and 2012, but then continued to decrease every year from 2015 to 2020. The Total Generating Costs saw the same spike sometime after 2007 but again went back on the trend of decreasing after 2015.
You’ve made an excellent point of arguing semantics. I concede that “every year” isn’t as accurate as saying “most years except for the spike in 2004-2012”.
Falling back to the level they were before the 2008 financial crisis isn’t indicative of the technology advancing and a general downward trend. It’s just the market normalising.
If we had been not investing in nuclear plants only whilst costs were sky high I’d think you’d have an argument, but we’ve been avoiding nuclear investments for a lot longer than that.
There have been a lot of technological advances, though. Maybe you just never noticed, but we’ve had advances in fuel assembly and coolants that allow operation at lower temperature ranges and smaller reactors.
In the future, potential new Thorium Reactors, almost all of which currently operational are for research purposes, could provide another huge leap forward as they produce less plutonium than other standard Uranium isotopes.
Plus, our technology for containing and handling plasma has grown in leaps and bounds, although most of that technology seems to be closely guarded in China so I don’t have high hopes for it.
yeah maybe because only the most cost effective ones remain? (natural selection)
…and because the older plants are simply written off already. If you already recouped the building costs, you can charge based on just the running cost.
Are you saying newer facilities aren’t more efficient but instead a random chance which coincidentally leads to anual efficiency gains?
If that were true, we wouldn’t need to guess. We could just look at the data showing that new plants provide cheaper electricity.
Thats why I linked the data.
It just presents data without going into detail. You’re making unsupported assumptions.
Feel free to present counter-data, then.