A page on energy issues
See "see also" below and especially what happens when you do not go nuclear
The issue
A frequent claim in energy discussions is that nuclear power is a failure anyway, because it's too expensive.
There's something strange going on
This argument is not just applied to new reactors. It is also applied to premature closures of existing PWRs. See what happens when you do not go nuclear.
But wait on... most of the cost of a nuclear plant is in building it. The capital cost and the cost of financing that capital.
Is it really cheaper to build a new fossil fuel plant, or new renewable capacity, than to continue to operate an existing nuke?
No way!
So what about new nukes
It's certainly true that building new nuclear power stations makes no business sense in the USA and some other countries at present. It's been true for some time... in the 1970s a senior executive from a major US power utility told me When you order a nuclear power station, you play a game called "You bet your company". And it's been getting progressively worse ever since.
But hold on... India, China and Russia are all building new power stations. Ukraine replaced the last two units at Chernobyl with two new PWRs (with money supplied by the EU), and you'd have thought they of all people would take any other option of there were one on offer, let alone a cheaper option. France is exporting nuclear generated electricity to supposedly atomkraft-free Germany, and seem to be making a nice profit.
What's the difference? Politics.
Nuclear power is expensive in some countries because the so-called "Green" or "environmental" movements have deliberately and maliciously and artificially and successfully set out to make it so. And for no other reason.
And it's a challenge for democracy. Because sooner or later, even the spoiled voters of the USA, and dare I say it the even more spoiled voters of my homeland Australia (who have on average one of the largest carbon footprints on the planet owing to our reliance on coal-fired electric power stations), are going to need to do something effective about climate change.
It will be interesting to see what and how.
And while carbon is the major problem of fossil fuel, it's ironical that they also get away with disposing of radioactive waste in ways that would be completely unacceptable in the nuclear industry. The radioactive brine from gas production, the ash from coal. Why is it permitted? Again, politics.
We probably don't even need a carbon tax. Just impose the same standards for radioactive waste disposal on fossil as for nuclear, and much of it becomes uneconomic anyway.
But not suddenly. When the lights go out, voters may find a different perspective! Californians didn't much like the blackouts caused by fire risk in their 2019 summer. Having closed down all but one of their nukes (one station, two units, to close in 2025) they now depend on gas (about half of their local generation and about a third of their consumption when you count imports, the biggest source by far on both counts).
They now have some serious reality checking to do on both the matters of radioactive waste and of power imports. It was the long distance transmission lines that caused the problems in 2019. If they'd had more local capacity, they'd have had few if any blackouts.
A circular argument
Interesting. The only argument left for opposing nuclear plants is the excessive capital cost. But one of the reasons for that excessive cost. possibly the only reason, is that opposition.
So isn't it time to revisit this argument too? To ask, OK, what would be the economics without this political sabotage? Particularly as the other arguments against nuclear power are looking so very shaky?
The conclusion
Are nukes economically viable? At the moment, it depends where you live. Long term, probably they are everywhere..
But in some countries, notably but not only the USA, the market is so distorted by politics that it is impossible to say. There is at least a strong suspicion that if this distortion were to be removed, this last hurdle to building new nukes there would be removed too.
And this distortion is being deliberately and successfully prolonged by the anti-nuclear-power movement. The conclusion is obvious... They know very well that, given a level playing field, there's every chance that nuclear would quickly become viable worldwide. And there's other evidence of this too, see The green nuclear backdown.
See also
External links
Other pages
More to follow. Watch this space.
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