this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Really the entire goal should be both renewables and nuclear. Nuclear provides a reliable baseline that isn't dependent on weather conditions, is incredibly safe, and will last a long time at the cost of large upfront construction costs. Renewables are great for main power generation and can be used for small scale or large scale power generation and built quickly, but they need the weather to be optimal to generate optimal power. They also need to be mantained and replaced more often, which can be covered by that baseline nuclear provides. Since we don't have advanced enough power storage to use renewables exclusively due to their drawbacks, nuclear would be great for replacing coal and oil power plants to supply it when the renewables aren't able to do all of the work.
You forgot the large costs of operating, the large costs of maintaining, the large costs of nuclear waste disposal and the large costs of deconstruction of nuclear plants.
Yeah, other than that it's a great viable way for few very large companies to make great guaranteed profits as the tax payer will take care of the risks.
I honestly thought operational/maintenance costs were lower per unit of power in nuclear than wind/solar. Is that incorrect?
No that claim isn't backed up by any sources I could find. Sounds fringe attitude to me. It's a good thing that people study this as their job and advise the legislative branch because it's complicated. When I looked up the levelized* cost of energy I had a hard time finding sources that agreed with each other. In particular, the nuclear societies were skewing the data, but the same with certain German think tanks claiming the exact opposite. Debate all around. Hydro FTW.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/wang-k2/
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants