Not at all. Old paid of nuclear plants are competitive but new builds are insanely expensive leading to $140-220/MWh prices for the ratepayers before factoring in grid stability and transmission costs.[1]
The US has zero commercial reactors under construction and this is for one reason: economics.
The recent announcements from the hyperscalers are PPAs. If the company building the reactor can provide power at the agreed price they will take it off their hands. Thus creating a more stable financial environment to get funding.
They are not investing anything on their own. For a recent example NuScale another SMR developer essentially collapsed when their Utah deal fell through when nice renders and PowerPoints met real world costs and deadlines. [2]
[1]: https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
[2]: https://iceberg-research.com/2023/10/19/nuscale-power-smr-a-...
> leading to $140-220/MWh prices for the ratepayers
I'm on PG&E, I wish I could get my electricity for only $0.14/kWh
That cost is excluding grid stability and transmission costs.
From what I’ve understood PG&E’s largest problem is the massive payouts and infrastructure upgrades needed from the wildfires, not the cost of the electricity itself.
Ain't that a direct result of them not investing in their infra for decades and all that technical debt catching up to them?
Thanks! I always thought it is due to people's safety concerns here instead of economic reasons. After all, nuclear plant is quite 'popular' in Europe, and China too these days.
We built a lot of nuclear back in the 70s and 80s which we still rely on with long term operation upgrades.
For modern nuclear power the only nuclear reactor under construction in France is Flamanville 3 which is 6x over budget and 12 years late on a 6 year construction timeline.
Hinkley Point C in the UK is in a similar quagmire and Olkiluoto 3 finally got finished last year after a near 20 year construction timeline.
Politically there's some noise from conservative politicians who can't hold a climate change denial position anymore, but still need to be contrarians.
The problem is the horrendous economics.
It’s not popular in Europe at all.
France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy.
For Europe overall is 22%.
That French capacity was largely built a long time ago, though. Only a couple of nuclear plants have been built on Europe in the last decade, and they've generally overrun _horribly_ on costs.