I just spent the day reading about the economics of nuclear.
Long answer short:
Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries which have direct fossil reserves.
Nuclear is cost competitive but is an ultra long term investment (60/100 years lifespan for a power plant)
And the construction cost is huge.
A fascinating thing to note is that today New power plants cost between 4000 and 5000 $ per KWe.
As science and experience improve you would expect like everywhere else, for prices to go down.
But it's the reverse, in 1960s power plants had a cost of 1500$ per KWe!!!
This is sad and mostly explained by overengeenered security specifications.
If we could make again such efficiency today, nuclear would be by FAR the cheapest energy source.
Still, Chinese and South Korea achieve 3000$ per KWe efficiency (making it for them the cheapest energy source by a significant amount)
And 2 new promising reactor designs target sub 2500$ per KWe.
Among future reactor designs, they can have some of those advantages:
Less or no wastes.
Guaranted safety (auto shutdown by design)
Ability to desalinate water or produce hydrogen for free
Ability to use thorium making nuclear almost a renewable energy source (enough for 2000 years of energy supply for all humanity)
And potential costs savings:
Less employee (700 per power plant is a valid number today)
More efficiency: from 33% to 45%
> Long answer short: Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries which have direct fossil reserves.
That doesn't make sense: Countries that have reserves can sell them at the exact price that countries without pay. The comparison with nuclear cannot logically be different for those two cases.
Transport costs drive up the price for non-producing buyers.
Also, producer reduce supply when they use their own product, which pushes prices up and reduces the difference in costs for the fuel (non-producers also drive up the price a when they buy, but that doesn’t help them).
I doubt either of those effects is particularly significant, but they aren’t nothing.
Long answer short: Nuclear still is cost competitive except on countries which have direct fossil reserves.
Nuclear is cost competitive but is an ultra long term investment (60/100 years lifespan for a power plant) And the construction cost is huge.
A fascinating thing to note is that today New power plants cost between 4000 and 5000 $ per KWe. As science and experience improve you would expect like everywhere else, for prices to go down. But it's the reverse, in 1960s power plants had a cost of 1500$ per KWe!!! This is sad and mostly explained by overengeenered security specifications. If we could make again such efficiency today, nuclear would be by FAR the cheapest energy source.
Still, Chinese and South Korea achieve 3000$ per KWe efficiency (making it for them the cheapest energy source by a significant amount) And 2 new promising reactor designs target sub 2500$ per KWe.
Among future reactor designs, they can have some of those advantages: Less or no wastes. Guaranted safety (auto shutdown by design) Ability to desalinate water or produce hydrogen for free Ability to use thorium making nuclear almost a renewable energy source (enough for 2000 years of energy supply for all humanity) And potential costs savings: Less employee (700 per power plant is a valid number today) More efficiency: from 33% to 45%
Source for many things: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-a...