Unless you’re wind or solar. Then bankruptcy = need a bigger taxpayer subsidy.

Tens of thousands of square miles isn’t a great deal of land? Will we not see more dams as the storage system is developed- I’m assuming capacity on the order of GW-weeks. Was the damming of the Colorado River not a great loss?

If we can expect nuclear to perform at over 90% capacity and the generation can be close to its end-use, would you argue that the renewable solution is comparable?

Why is the need for storage inevitable?

Would you argue that it is impossible to produce nuclear power stations for less than a few billion? I do not expect the first reactors to be inexpensive on a wattage basis, but some approaches to fission allow for designs that look to be affordable in the near term, and downright cheap with mass production. Thorium advocates are talking about a future of many thousands of reactors, safe enough to live and work near. The cost of thorium being so low (1 tonne per GW-year), that end-user energy costs should eventually be driven within 1 cent or less a kWh.

There is very good reason to believe that an energy-sparse strategy can be beat by an energy-dense one. There will probably be consequences for not developing a competitive economy on this transition to sustainability.

You are kind of comparing apples and oranges here.

Asking him to look up the cost of the last few light water reactors as a basis for estimating the cost of Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors is like asking you to estimate the cost of my rooftop PV array based on the costs of the PS20 Concentrating Solar Thermal tower in Spain.

They are completely different technologies and calling LWR’s and LFTR’s the same because they are both nuclear makes no more sense than saying PV and CST are the same because they are both solar.
There might be some small number of things that you could use for both, like the cost of the environmental study and the permitting costs. I suppose the legal cost you would inevitably face would also be similar. But the actual construction costs of recent LWR’s? They are immaterial.

Single piece forging that can only but made at one facility on the planet? Nope, not necessary.

Giant containment dome several feet thick to contain superheated steam? Nope, there is no steam, it operates at 1atm.

Giant cooling towers? Maybe, but most designs I have seen use the higher operating temp to employ a Brayton cycle turbine, which is more efficient and can vent directly to atmosphere.

Multiple redundant pumps and back up systems to prevent a Fukushima type event. Pumps, back up generators, batteries, etc. We are told that on weekends the Molten Reactor Experiment would just cut all power to the reactor (which is what happened at Fukushima) and it would drain into its passively cooled holding tank. So, no or at least not the same back up systems.

So, I don’t think you are asking for the right info. That doesn’t mean LFTR is less expensive than wind, but asking for recent nuclear plant construction costs is at best a red herring.

Well, according to Cool Earth Solar:

“One solar power plant, using Cool Earth’s technology, covering 150 miles by 150 miles, would generate enough power to meet all the electrical needs of the United States through 2030.”

That is 10′s of thousands of miles.

I only use them as an example because I remembered that they had done this type of comparison.

Of course you would think the goal would be dual use land like rooftops and parking lots. I have no idea what the total area of US commercial rooftops and parking lots may be or even the area covered by the US interstate freeway system. If it’s more than 22,500 sq mi, then maybe there is no additional land use necessary.

I agree – well put. This Bob Wallace character is either being purposely difficult, or is just an old crank. Bob, get excited! This is a much better design, and you should at least avail yourself of researching the technology. It won’t cost anything but a little of your time and concentration, and who knows you just may learn something. Then, you can come back with a more cogent argument like “well I think that the Flibe salt production process uses quite a bit of mercury, so a more environmentally friendly process would be necessary before wide-scale adoption would be possible.” Instead of “well it’s never been done before so we just don’t know.” No. YOU don’t know. But you should at least try. We need you on our team, and will be happy to have you.

I’m a realist and a pragmatist Kyle. When someone actually makes a working thorium reactor that produces cheap electricity then I’ll get on board.
Right now we’ve got plenty of proven technology that does produce cheap electricity, cleanly and safely. My energy is going toward getting the climate problem minimized.

Corey – no one has created a nuclear reactor that produces electricity cheaper than a mix of renewables plus storage. Period.

The amount of land that would be needed to harvest all the energy we need for all our uses from renewable sources is trivial. 100% PV solar for all our energy needs – electricity, transportation and heating – would take only 0.32% of our land.

The problems of finding appropriate sites for nuclear reactors are very significant.

The safety problems created by uranium fueled reactors is
very significant and extremely long lasting.

Renewables can be installed quickly and in small amounts thus bringing electricity to those currently without very efficiently. And
very affordably. .

Again I’ll give you the likely cost of our electricity on a renewable grid.
Wind-generated electricity 4 cents per kWh.
Solar-generated electricity 6 cents per kWh.
Tidal-generated electricity 4 cents per kWh.
Geothermal-generated electricity 4 cents per kWh.
Hydro-generated electricity 6 cents per kWh.
Storage to tie it all together 2 cents per kWh.

Assuming we could get half our power directly from renewable source and would need to store half (likely a higher percentage direct, but…) we come to a price of very roughly 6 cents per kWh.

The very lowest estimate I’ve seen for new nuclear was 12 cents and that was an industry insider who refused to state what costs were and were not included.

Low end estimates from credible sources start at 15 cents, current recent bid offers come in around 20 cents, and some estimate the cost well over 20 cents per kWh.

Nuclear simply is not competitive. Nuclear is very slow to bring on line. Nuclear brings safety issues to our neighborhoods that most of us do not want.

Now, if someone invents a cheap way to make electricity from banging atoms around and can do so safely, then nuclear will find a receptive audience. Until then you are simply shaking your fist at the clouds.

First, those are prices for production. What it costs the “wind factory” to manufacture their product – electricity. It does not include any profit that the wind farm might be able to put on top of their production costs. And it certainly is far from what the retail customer would pay.

If you look at the median LCOE costs for the major grid inputs (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, renewables) the average is half of the average US retail price of ~$0.12/kWh.

Start with production cost, add in some profit for the producer, subtract out subsidies where they exist, add in utility/grid costs and some profit for them, subtract out electricity losses in transmission, and you end up with the retail price.

The production tax credit subsidies do help bring the final price down a bit, but with wind now just hitting 4% of our total supply the 2 cents it gets doesn’t impact the final price much. About $0.0009/kWh

If you look at the lowest prices in the spread for each generation source you should be seeing the price of newest installation. The high prices for wind reflect earlier installed, less productive turbines when siting was not as refined and technology not as good.

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I can see us continuing to install reactors on military ships, money is less an issue. I do not see them being installed on commercial vessels where the bottom line is important.

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The world might need one reactor somewhere to generate medical products. As long as we use nuclear medicine. That might not be something we will need as time goes on. $5 billion retail = $2.5 billion or less wholesale. With the incredible profit margins on medical products past the producer level the reactor owner might be getting more like $1.5 billion. On a $10 billion risky investment. Sounds like nuclear medicine might support one reactor for the world.

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The world is a pretty open market these days. If China or some other country develops thorium reactors that make electricity cheaper than 3 cents a kWh then I’m sure they’ll be willing to sell us some.

I’m sure that the US is continuing to research thorium reactors. If we thought we had a way to make one that works and might produce competitively priced electricity we’d be funding a demonstration project.

Keep the hurdle “2 cents is higher than the price of fill-in from gas/storage.

I’ve see no credible source claim that new nuclear could be built for less than 15 cents per kWh.

Yep. If someone can build something that works and is safe and cheaper than other technologies then it’s something we should use.

In the meantime we have clean, safe, cheap ways to make electricity. Let’s put our efforts into installing those and cutting climate change.

The VDE-report doesn’t mention power exchange across Germany’s boarders. If it did Germany wouldn’t need additional storage, since Norway alone (without Sweden, France, Austria and Switzerland) has a hydro storage capacity which is equal to over 50 days of Germany’s total power consumption (there are simply no nights and dead calm periods which last that long).
The VDE-report says that Germany would need storage above 80% (and up to 80% it would lose about 7% of renewable power if it did not invest in storage).
Regardless, it simply doesn’t make sense to invest in electrified storage as long as most buildings are heated with oil and natural gas. It’s better to electrify the heating and hot water sector to gain demand flexibilty and use a small part of the saved fossil fuels for flexible power plant. This is true for Germany as well as the US. Also, up to a certain point, it is simply much cheaper to overbuild renewables, than storing every kWh: If wind can be produced for 3 cent/kWh and you don’t use 20% of it (overbuilding instead of storing), wind power would simply cost 3.6 cent/kWh instead.

BTW, Solar power in Germany is almost as cheap as solar power in Spain, since the interests rates are lower for German PV power plants. Germany has enough PV and wind potential to power 100% of the electric demand. (And transporting PV power from southern Europe or Africa is definitely more expensive than producing PV power in Germany directly. Besides with Offshore wind Europe can produce seven times more power than Europe requires: http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/reports/Offshore_Report_2009.pdf
However, it is certainly sensible to produce solar and wind power in North Africa, but mostly because it would displace a lot of fossil fuels currently consumed to produce power in North Africa and not necessarily because it would provide clean power to Europe.)

Very good information. Thanks.

Keep it coming.