Cost Of Nuclear Power Compared To Other Energy Sources

Nuclear power plants provide low cost predictable power at stable prices and are essential in maintaining the reliability of the u s.

Cost of nuclear power compared to other energy sources.

Nuclear s lcoe is between 60 and 143 putting it ahead of residential rooftop solar but behind utility scale solar and wind. This basically means nuclear power plants are producing maximum power more than 93 of the time during the year. The dramatically lower price of utility scale solar power and wind power compared to fossil fuels and nuclear power should be evident to everyone today. The lcoe can also be regarded as the minimum constant price at which electricity must be sold in order to break even over the lifetime of the project.

Normally these costs are expressed relative to a unit of electricity for example cents per kilowatt hour to allow a consistent comparison with other energy technologies. Decommissioning costs are about 9 15 of the initial capital cost of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear energy on the other hand has a technical lifespan of 60 to 80 years. For residential rooftop solar it s about 138 to 222.

And here s one in a. For wind and solar energy this technical lifespan is between 20 and 25 years. The levelized cost of energy lcoe is a measure of a power source that allows comparison of different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis. Below you see two tables one with renewable energy sources and one with nuclear energy sources.

That s about 1 5 to 2 times more as natural gas and coal units and 2 5 to 3 5 times more reliable than wind and solar plants. In addition to this unlike well established conventional designs the advancement in different re technologies still requires. Economist charles frank of the brookings institution has developed a way to better compare renewable energy by measuring the amount of c02 displaced and at what cost compared to conventional energy sources. Nuclear power has one of the lowest levels of fatalities per unit of energy generated compared to other energy sources.

Nuclear power is a major national energy source. This can be roughly calculated as the net present value of all costs over the. Currently the re costs are generally higher than that of fossil based and nuclear energy. Coal petroleum natural gas and hydroelectricity each have caused a greater number of fatalities per unit of energy due to air pollution and accidents.

Based on that measure renewable energy can t compete with hydro nat gas or nuke power as to cost. As you can see nuclear energy has by far the highest capacity facto r of any other energy source.