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First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

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Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#11

Post by merpnderp »

Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

The good news is that after it is paid for, it will cost about $20-$25/MWh. The bad news is that at least for the few decades it will cost $75, which is about the same as solar+battery LCOE today.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#12

Post by krasin »

Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

> 4 cents per kWh.

For comparison: I live in SF Bay Area and pay 42 cents per kWh.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#13

Post by runako »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

> someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project. All roads lead to Ratepayers (electrical customers). > Georgia Power’s residential customers are projected to pay more than $926 apiece as part of an ongoing finance charge and elected public service commissioners have approved a rate increase. Residential customers will pay $4 more per month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. That could hi…

It's nice to have a captive customer base. Georgia Power serves more than a million additional people now than it did when this thing broke ground. And somehow all the pre-existing customers, plus the million+ new residents, all have to pay $4 extra for the power generated here. This, in addition to the fees they pay for electricity.

Vogtle isn't going to be a good sales pitch for expanding nuclear.

It's no wonder Georgia Power doesn't provide a calculator to let people know how Vogtle coming online affects the per-unit cost to consumers.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#14

Post by vel0city »

krasin wrote: post #12
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

> 4 cents per kWh. For comparison: I live in SF Bay Area and pay 42 cents per kWh.

For comparison: I pay 6.269¢ per kWh for energy costs.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#15

Post by charrondev »

krasin wrote: post #12
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

> 4 cents per kWh. For comparison: I live in SF Bay Area and pay 42 cents per kWh.

For comparison I pay 6 cents per kWh in Quebec (and that’s Canadian money).

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#16

Post by SilasX »

krasin wrote: post #12
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

> 4 cents per kWh. For comparison: I live in SF Bay Area and pay 42 cents per kWh.

Just to make sure no one misunderstands (not saying you did, just that this is easy to misread):

The 4 cent/kWh figure is the additional cost it would have to charge, over the life of the plant, to make up for the budget overage, and would go on top of whatever ratepayers would have to pay for its "regular" energy output.

Further pedantry: you'd have to factor in time value, so that kind of understates it, as the entity that built it would have had to borrow that much more to finish, and pay back with interest.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#17

Post by Scoundreller »

Manuel_D wrote: post #10
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

Those are non-intermittent kilowatt hours, though (and the maintenance that does need to happen is known in advance). One energy demand at peak production is saturated, intermittent sources become a lot more expensive since storage needs to be provisioned. Some markets are fast approaching this scenario: https://reneweconomy.com.au/california-duck-curve-now-a-cany...

Wouldn’t solar, as an intermittent source, be well correlated with demand in Georgia?

Sun’s out = heavy AC load?

Doing any grid 100% solar needs a lot of storage, but there’s gotta be a perfect point that mostly shaves peaks really nicely.

(Yeah yeah, it can be cloudy and hot+humid, but still)

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#18

Post by ryan93 »

So to power every home in the USA would roughly cost 3 trillion at these prices. if they reused the same teams and designs maybe they could get it somewhat cheaper. plus we have increasing renewable plus existing hydro and nuclear. for the price of a year or two of national debt we could go full renewable in this country.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#19

Post by justrealist »

ryan93 wrote: post #18

So to power every home in the USA would roughly cost 3 trillion at these prices. if they reused the same teams and designs maybe they could get it somewhat cheaper. plus we have increasing renewable plus existing hydro and nuclear. for the price of a year or two of national debt we could go full renewable in this country.

So we could decarbonize the entire US power grid for what we spent on COVID relief/stimulus?

That seems like a good deal, even without economies of scale...

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#20

Post by pavlov »

mikece wrote: post #8

> ...seven years late and $17 billion over budget... And how much of that was a result of red tape from the NRC, DOE, and EPA?

I don’t know, but new nuclear projects in the West tend to be extremely late and over budget even with friendly regulators.

Olkiluoto 3 in Finland is a Gen 3 reactor that just came online earlier this year. Its original target date was 2010. The original budget was 3 billion euros, but the final cost was over 11 billion.

The project was of great national importance because this single unit provides around 14% of power to the country, and the Finnish nuclear power regulator was extremely motivated to make it happen. So the delays and cost overruns were not due to red tape.

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