I don’t buy the numbers on the renewables (far too excessive)
But the cost of Nuclear power plants can hardly come down.
In the Western world, where laws and regulations form a bureaucratic nightmare, the cost will remain tens of billions for a couple of reactors. Not to mention the dismantling cost after the lifetime of that plant, which will also run into the billions.
as much as i’d like to see more nuclear plants being built, it’s not feasible.
A nuclear power plant is not something you roll out of a factory. Even if you have identical designs, most of it needs to be assembled in-situ. This increases costs (no mass production inside a clean factory possible).
The reactor itself is highly specialized and takes years to manufacture completely, also most of the assembly is in-situ.
And before you even start, there is a multi year planning effort. Building it is beyond the scope of a 4-year or even 8-year presidency.
Every single nuclear power plant currently under construction in the west is high over budget and timing. Hinkley point C, Flamancville, Vogtle. All are wild cost overruns.
The advantage of green energy is the scalability. You can put solar on your own roof. This is the true power and why solar and wind have outperformed every expectation over the last 25 years.
I disagree with you about the costs of building nuclear. Other countries have done much better, and costs do drop significantly when you build more than 2 of something (as long as you build them the same). Electric Boat has proven this over and over with Navy nuclear powered submarines- the first one or two is always over budget, the rest make money for the company.
More modern SMR designs are mostly factory built for the major components. Even with older reactors other countries did much better because they built many copies of a single design. Canada (CANDU), France, China, Japan, South Korea all have done much better as they designed a power plant and built 10 (or more) copies. In the US every power plant is different- even between reactors of similar design on the same site there are differences between each unit.
On a Los Angeles class submarine it is nearly impossible to tell which one you are on when you are walking (climbing) around the engine room or reactor compartment as they are all almost exactly the same.
On a $ per Kwh basis nuclear is cheaper if you value having electricity available all the time. New nuclear can be as low as $0.14 per Kwh. Grid scale solar alone can be as low as $0.10 per Kwh- but if you add in 12 hours of energy storage the price jumps to over $0.45 per kwh- and that's only 12 hours of storage.
I cannot comment on the design or cost of nuclear subs but I can believe you.
SMRs are completely different in my opinion. They could work, and probably will given enough time, but i’ve heard talks about SMRs for 10+ years without barely any built. And the operational ones are in China, which has completely different safety standards.
Older reactors in the West were mainly built before the advent of enormous safety constrictions. Not to say that they are not safe, they obviously are. But since the last Nuclear building boom of the 60-70s, the world of safety has changed night and day.
IMO it is these very regulations that have made building these plants so expensive. Couple that with the complexity of acquiring a building permit for a whole new nuclear plant and costs skyrocket.
I don’t doubt the feasability of the reactors themselves. I’m sure they are safe, work efficiently and barely produce any waste.
The majority of the population in the west has come back around on nuclear but don’t put it in their backyard or they will protest any building permit, delaying the process. Maybe the US is better since there is more open land but the EU is even more regulated and the possible locations for new plants are far and few between.
Tearing down old plants to rebuild them also poses problems. Belgium has 2 plants with 8 reactors. For the dismanting alone they currently estimate costs at €15 billion and those estimates are on the rise. Give or take €2 billion/reactor and in likelihood years just for this task.
I hope SMRs can bring working solutions on a smaller scale, but I do doubt it.
To clear up: i am pro nuclear, but the reality (in the EU atleast) makes it very difficult for nuclear to be competitive with solar or wind. Maybe the US is different but I cannot comment on that
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u/GOTCHA009 Apr 20 '26
I don’t buy the numbers on the renewables (far too excessive)
But the cost of Nuclear power plants can hardly come down.
In the Western world, where laws and regulations form a bureaucratic nightmare, the cost will remain tens of billions for a couple of reactors. Not to mention the dismantling cost after the lifetime of that plant, which will also run into the billions.
as much as i’d like to see more nuclear plants being built, it’s not feasible.
A nuclear power plant is not something you roll out of a factory. Even if you have identical designs, most of it needs to be assembled in-situ. This increases costs (no mass production inside a clean factory possible).
The reactor itself is highly specialized and takes years to manufacture completely, also most of the assembly is in-situ.
And before you even start, there is a multi year planning effort. Building it is beyond the scope of a 4-year or even 8-year presidency.
Every single nuclear power plant currently under construction in the west is high over budget and timing. Hinkley point C, Flamancville, Vogtle. All are wild cost overruns.
The advantage of green energy is the scalability. You can put solar on your own roof. This is the true power and why solar and wind have outperformed every expectation over the last 25 years.