Cost Of Nuclear Energy Compared To Other Sources

The estimated cost of a new nuclear facility in the united states is approximately 9 billion.

Cost of nuclear energy compared to other sources.

To accurately compare the cost of nuclear against other energy sources one must include the following costs. In 2017 more than 85 percent of the energy countries consumed came from coal natural gas and oil. But not all. Nuclear energy becomes the cheapest option once we put the construction costs in perspective.

Nuclear energy is cheap the average electricity production cost in 1999 for nuclear energy was 1 83 cents per kilowatt hour for coal fired plants 2 07 cents for oil 3 24 cents and for gas 3 52 cents http www fi edu guide wester benefits html nuclear energy is enviromentally friendly. Even if you consider the most expensive nuclear power station in europe hinkley point c and compare it with wind and solar power plants. For a nuclear plant these tend to be lower even though the following steps occur in the production of the fuel assemblies used in the reactor. In the 2015 report projected costs of generating electricity the overnight costs ranged from 2021 kwe in south korea to 6215 kwe in hungary.

Despite the diversity of energy sources available most countries rely on the three major fossil fuels. These costs are recycled back into the economy through. This can be seen in figure 2 below which shows a comparison of the cost to generate energy for various technologies. The cost of power from a nuclear plant also tends to remain stable 7 even if the cost of uranium.

Hydroelectricity and other renewable energy 10 percent and nuclear energy about 4 percent accounted for the remainder. By comparison the lowest cost conventional technologies were gas combined cycle technologies averaging 74 per megawatt hour and coal plants averaging 109. The oecd nuclear energy agency s nea s calculation of the overnight cost for a nuclear power plant built in the oecd rose from about 1900 kwe at the end of the 1990s to 3850 kwe in 2009. We omit the higher operational costs for the nuclear power plant as they are an economic benefit as well.

For a small household plant that can produce around 3 mwh year the cost is. Onshore wind has the lowest average levelized cost in this analysis at 59 per megawatt hour and utility scale photovoltaic plants weren t far behind at 79. Mining of the uranium ore conversion to u 3 o 8 uranium. The cost of nuclear energy is manageable for most countries.

If we were to develop nuclear energy in the same way that we re working with renewables like wind or solar then the costs would be almost equal. Comparatively a nuclear station s capital costs are higher than any other fuel source 6 but they produce electricity at a very low cost which offsets the initial high cost. Costs associated with the fuel used in the production of energy. If for example nuclear power plants were to be insured for 300 billions euro 400 billions usd the cost of nuclear electricity would be increased by 0 031 to 0 063 euro by 4 to 8 us cents per kwh.