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0 pointsJolter6d ago0 comments

You’re right, the total system costs include a lot of things, including disposal of spent fuel. Which is apparently so expensive, nuclear can’t compete with renewables fairly.

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mpweiher6d ago· 2 in thread

That's not true. Disposal of spent fuel was always included in the price of electricity (for example in Germany, but many/most others as well) and is negligible in cost.

Finland just built a spent-fuel repository for ~ € 1 billion. For the entire country. Just the single EPR at Olkiluoto 3 will produce electricity worth €100 billion over its lifetime if you assume a price of 10 cents/kWh.

So at 10 cents, it would be 1% of the price of electricity if Olkiluoto 3 had to finance the whole thing by itself.

JolterOP6d ago

What part isn’t true? That disposal of fuel is part of the total systems cost? Or that the new nuclear can’t compete without subsidies? I think both are evident truths.

mpweiher5d ago

The part I explained: disposal is, unlike your claim, not a significant part of total cost of nuclear power.

Therefore, even assuming for a second your counterfactual that nuclear power isn't cost-competitive, it wouldn't be due to the disposal costs.

Of course it's also not true that nuclear isn't cost competitive. It absolutely is.

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