NRG's estimate for Texas nuclear reactors still climbing ($8 billion)

[jpak]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-nrgcost_27bus.ART.State.Edition1.15de092.html

NRG Energy Inc.'s estimate of the cost to build two nuclear reactors in South Texas keeps climbing.

Last summer, officials with the power plant developer said the reactors at the South Texas Project would cost between $6 billion and $7 billion. Then the estimate moved to $7 billion. On Wednesday, executives said the reactors will probably cost $8 billion.

Blame higher costs for material used to build power plants, such as steel and concrete, and the weak dollar.

U.S. companies no longer make some of the massive parts for nuclear reactors, since the country hasn't built nuclear power plants in decades. So NRG must import about 30 percent of the parts for the reactors from Japan.

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[Massacure]

1. Well the fact that they need to import explains it - the dollar is so weak right now.

Nuclear reactors aren't the only thing who have skyrocketing cost. *cough*

[philb]

2. If Florida, current estimate of cost for 2 FPL reactors approved was $17 billion

[NNadir]

3. Wow. That's cheap compared to what 17 billion dollars of solar or wind could buy.

This is especially true if one includes the external costs of wind and solar.

Next we'll have dumb fundie anti nukes saying that each nuclear plant will cost a trillion dollars.

[jpak]

5. umm...that's $17 - 24 billion depending on which reactors they build

http://a4nr.org/library/economics/02.21.2008-nucleonicsweek

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The company said the cost for building the two units ranges from $12.1 billion to $17.8 billion for Westinghouse's AP1000, and $16.5 billion to $24.3 billion for General Electric's ESBWR.

FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said last week that the company reached its cost estimates by revising a 2004 study of overnight costs done by a consortium of companies, led by the Tennessee Valley Authority in coordination with DOE. That study found the cost of building two ABWRs would be $1,611 per kilowatt. In updating those figures for 2007, FPL said, it found that costs for materials, equipment and labor had risen more than 50% by some indexes since 2004.

In its revisions, FPL determined that overnight costs for the power plant island and supporting construction would range from $6.7 billion, or $2,444/kW, to $9.8 billion, or $3,582/kW.

FPL added owner's costs, including security, cooling towers, site work and land costs ranging from $1.27 billion, or $466/kW, to $1.96 billion, or $717/kW. Additionally, FPL estimated transmission costs and allowance for cost risk ranging from $541.7 million, or $198/kW, to $663.6 million, or $242/kW.

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Now.

The 132 MW Kibby Mountain wind farm in Maine will cost $270 million (all costs including a 27 mile transmission line). It will produce 375 million kwh per year (a projected capacity factor of 32% based on on-site wind data).

That's $2045/kW vs. $5780/kW - $8071/kW for FPL's new nukes.

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FPL then added an 11% carrying charge for construction costs and factored in cost escalation over the scope of the project to reach its final figures of $5,780/kW to $8,071/kW depending on the scope of the project and inflation.

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$17 billion would buy 8311 MW of new wind capacity...

$24 billion would by 11,733 MW of new wind capacity...

Even accounting for wind capacity factors, wind is cheaper than nuclear.

Way cheaper...

[diane in sf]

4. And that expense is just building, fueling, waste disposal and decommissioning

are yet to be added in.

Renewables like wind and solar without those pesky mining (irradiated Navajos, Iraquis and the rest of us) and waste problems and conservation would be better investments.

And with renewables they won't be soaking the ratepayers for their stranded plant costs down the line either.

[malakai2]

6. There are no mining issues for wind and solar?!

Do the parts for those generators grow on trees? At the scale necessary to offset the production from coal or nuke plants, the mining issues are just as big, but from a host of other directions. Then the raw material must be refined, molded, packaged, shipped, installed, and maintained, all of which require electricity from baseload generators like coal and nukes and portable energy in the form of oil as well. To even approach baseload with solar and wind will require massive energy storage, which likely means tripling (at least) the external costs, and all of that is to offset future generation.

While you may be able to put the brakes on consumption rates and maybe cause a plateau in usage, the entire point is to reduce overall generation from fossil fuels and nukes. So...how are you going to persuade people to either make a return to the 1940s use rates, or to accept the inevitable new forms of pollution as somehow better than what they are facing now?

[diane in sf]

7. You can recycle metals from old machinery, industrial stuff turns over roughly

every 20 years and you can usually do more with less actual physical material (eg. my Apple laptop vs. a $2 million dollar typesetting prepress set up 25 years ago, from literal tons of metal and plastic requiring major cooling to 10 lbs. with better function). Even back in the 1970s Buckminster Fuller's calculations revealed you could just start using scrap from obsolete machinery to make new stuff and stop digging up the earth.

Also once you build a solar plant or wind mill you don't have to keep mining radioactive ore to keep it running. You do mechanical maintenance.

The wind is always blowing somewhere, especially in the northern plains states and in the world's coastal areas, if you have enough wind generators you will always have some electricity. Ditto tide generators, ditto solar panels during peak demand hours. The new desert solar plants use hot water to generate 24 hour power.

"how are you going to persuade people to either make a return to the 1940s use rates, or to accept the inevitable new forms of pollution as somehow better than what they are facing now?"
You engineer and build more efficient autos, factories, machinery, lighting, housing, autos, windows, hvac, appliances, etc. and create incentives for people to buy them. The refrigerator I bought 4 years ago paid for itself in electric bill reduction in 3 years, it runs on the energy of one lightbulb for a year and is 40% larger than my previous fridge.
These energy forms are less polluting than nukes and fossils and conservation/efficiency is the cheapest available energy of all.