Electricity from new nuclear plants has a staggeringly high price

[kristopher]

The California Energy Commission did a little noticed comprehensive study, undisputed by the nuclear industry, that estimates electricity from new nuclear plants at between $0.17 - $0.34/kilowatt-hour wholesale (the average retail price of electricity is about $0.10/kwh). Even worse, to even get there requires the public to accept a risk premium that insurance companies would value at up to $3.40 for every kilowatt-hour generated.

...The detailed study considered three forms of ownership: merchant plant, investor-owned utility, and publicly owned utility. Merchant plants are built to serve deregulated markets and assume a high degree of market risk. They may not be able to sell all their electricity at any one time if their price is too high. Investor-owned utilities are the traditional private companies serving a regulated market. In California, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison are investor-owned. Publicly owned utilities are municipal utilities, like SMUD. Publicly owned utilities pay fewer taxes and have access to lower cost financing than either investor-owned utilities or merchant plants.

The CEC's 186-page report, "Comparative Costs of California Central Station Electricity Generation" , found that a 1,000-megawatt pressurized water reactor would generate electricity in 2018 from as little as $0.17 per kilowatt-hour to as much as $0.34 per kilowatt-hour. These results are startling: Most renewable technologies today, even solar photovoltaics (PV), generate electricity for less than that. Only a municipal utility could generate nuclear electricity for less than the cost of solar PV.

Currently, Germany pays between $0.31 and $0.41 per kilowatt-hour for electricity from solar PV, which means that the cost of solar-generated electricity today is equivalent to the cost estimated by the CEC for a nuclear plant beginning operation in 2018. And all observers, even critics, expect the cost of solar PV to continue declining during the next decade.

And what about insurance?

In an unrelated study for the German Renewable Energy Association, consultants found that nuclear reactors are effectively uninsurable. The 157-page report by Versicherungsforen Leipzig estimated that the premium necessary to insure a nuclear reactor from accident would cost from $0.20 per kilowatt-hour to a staggering $3.40 per kilowatt-hour...

http://www.grist.org/nuclear/2011-06-04-nuclear-power-is-expensive-and-uninsurable

[Zoeisright]

1. If we had put as much money into renewables as we have into nukes

we'd be energy independent right now. 99.99999% of all the "stats" comparing dirty nuclear to clean renewables ignores about 90% of nuke costs, including illness and death, insurance costs, cleanup costs, and costs from accidents that ARE going to happen.

[kristopher]

2. The amount of misinformation they put out about renewables is unbelievable!!

I used to think it was the fossil fuel industries doing it, but the internet has allowed better research in tracking memes back to their origins. I've found that almost all of the current lies about renewables are sourced back to a small circle of extremely active nuclear bloggers.

They are busy right now trying to spin Germany's withdrawal from the nuclear club as a move towards carbon fuels even though it is clear that they are going to accelerate their renewable build-out, particularly offshore wind. They are petrified that the web of deceit they've spun to hide their competitive disadvantage re renewables is going to completely unravel.

[madrchsod]

5. someone is spending huge money to kill wind turbines

they are well organized and deliver their message effectively. i`m guessing the koch bros..

[kristopher]

6. They got the US ball rolling on Cape Cod in 2002 with opposition to Cape Wind.

That was what I think served as their model for the teaparty style astroturfing we've seen so much of lately. I think the defense in the fossil fuel industry has shifted to influence through Congress since price volatility has made it impossible to convince the public that we should preserve gasoline technology.
I think they're focused on stalling tactics and wringing every last dollar out of oil that they can before electrics take over. Things like opposing carbon pricing serves their interests well.

The coal industry fights carbon pricing also, but the utilities, along with generating companies like Duke Electric and Exelon, and the minerals mining companies like Massey and Phelps Dodge are intent on holding their empire together with nuclear. They are operating in a different sphere where they see public opinion against both coal and nuclear as their greatest obstacle.

[WinkyDink]

11. Wind turbines are killing eagles. They can cause human ailments.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/06/environment-do-we-have-to-choose-between-clean-energy-or-the-animals.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/health/5947095.html

[truedelphi]

3. Thank you for your continuing to bring to light the

More unwholesome aspects of this dangerous industry.

We are told a great deal about how necessary it is for Obama to offer the nuclear power people some forty five billion dollars plus in loans, but rarely is it mentioned that this government intervention is necessary because Wall Street wants no part of the liability factor of the nuclear industry.

This should tell the American public, and the president as well, that this industry is not reliable.

[madrchsod]

4. the tax payers in the usa pick up the insurance tab for nuke plants

overall cost of a new nuke plant is 15-20 billion dollars. most of the guts of the plant will be made overseas because we sold off our industrial base in the 80`s-90`s.

we no longer make stainless steel pipe in this country.

[kristopher]

7. To be fair, that would be a plant with two reactors.

But on the other hand, that price would probably be a substantial underestimate judging by historical industry performance.

10 Reasons not to Invest in Nuclear Energy
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/07/nuclear_energy.html

[Generic Other]

8. have you averaged in the cost of the two biggest accidents?

Because that is clearly a factor. Chernobyl and Fukushima are very expensive issues.

[kristopher]

9. i'm sure those aren't directly factored into the CEC estimate.

But the insurance estimate gives a monetized indication of the risks from such events. What bothers me is how ineffectively this quantitative approach captures the actual quality of the losses. For example, how do you measure in money the feelings of anxiety that will overshadow the lives of this and coming generations of Japanese. Before Fukushima Japanese feared nothing more than cancer; to get a diagnosis of that illness was considered tantamount to a death sentence (my first Japanese wife died of cancer at 34 so unfortunately their attitudes on this are something I'm a bit too familiar with).

[KittyWampus]

10. I appreciate your posting this.

[girl gone mad]

12. kick.