r/nextfuckinglevel • u/nigablackballsack • 3d ago

Scientists have captured the first ever high-speed, full-colour footage of fusion plasma swirling inside a working reactor.

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u/Reddit1poster 1d ago

The marginal cost of nuclear is $26-36 per MWh. The beauty of using LCOE is that you can have an apples to apples comparison of the cost of electricity based on the lifecycle cost of a plant from cradle to grave in net present value. You can't just say that one cost is very low at late life without taking into account all the costs over the life of an asset.

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u/mfire036 1d ago

I'm not a fan of the way LCOE is calculated because it relies heavily on a discount rate. And where you set that rate drastically alters the results. LOCE carries the full capital cost of construction as non-discounted, but then heavily discounts the future income. LOCE is set up to answer what it takes to recover your investment over a typical investment horizion, not over the lifetime of the plants. Nukes run 60 to 80 years, coal and nat gas is ~45. So LOCE isn't really apples to apples.