The time for building nuclear was 30 years ago. They’re pointless now. Renewables are now cheaper (even including storage), and faster to build, and more likely to be community-owned or decentralised. There is just no reason to build anything else.
There is a reason to build nuclear if you actually hate renewables but know that it’s uncool to say that you do, so you shill nuclear to appear hip and cool
There are a lot of factors. But for most of the world, yes, renewables + storage is cheaper than any other option already:
Unsubsidized Solar Remains Most Cost-Efficient Energy Option in US
With the added costs of energy storage, the LCOE for wind rises to $US45-$133/MWh, which is still much cheaper than coal ($69-$168/MWh) and competitive with combined cycle gas ($45-$108/MWh).
Utility-scale solar, meanwhile, is valued at more than half the cost of coal, at an LCOE of between $29-$92/MWh, average $61/MWh. Large-scale solar with storage ranges in LCOE from between $60/MWh and $210/MWh.
The cost of nuclear power, meanwhile, has doubled since hitting a low of $US95/MWh in 2011, to an average of $US182/MWh, or ranging between $US142/MWh and $US222/MWh, in 2024.
In Sweden, where nuclear power generated 41% of the annual electricity supply in 2014, the official goal is 100% renewable electricity production by 2040. Therefore, we investigate the cost of a future low-carbon electricity system without nuclear power for Sweden. …
Our results show that there are no, or only minor, cost benefits to reinvest in nuclear power plants in Sweden once the old ones are decommissioned.
The race is over in most the world now, even if you could build a nuclear plant in a day. But given how long nuclear takes to build (still averaging over 6 years, many much longer). It’ll be surprising if any nuclear plant started now would be viable anywhere by the time it’s up and running.
I’m a solar energy nerd myself and watching the prices of LiFePO4 batteries over the past 2 years has been astonishing, I wonder what will happen with sodium batteries in the upcoming years. I wasn’t aware of the overall economic maturity of solar+storage as of today, and it’s impressive.
My only argument is: the prices for nuclear in all sources you’ve sent, from what I’ve seen, are in the west. US, Sweden, Denmark… China is planning to build 150GW of nuclear over the next 5 years, and more afterwards. What would be the environmental impact and the cost of Chinese new-gen nuclear when compared with Chinese PV+wind+storage? The data for China is hard to find in English unfortunately.
Given that China is probably always 5+ years ahead of us both in nuclear and renewable generation tech, it’s hard to know…
China has a lot of different terrains, it may be more suitable locations that do make economic sense, it may be to just utilise existing industrial chains to maximise the speed with which they can ramp up energy production, maybe the new-gen nuclear is somehow that much magically better, or it may just be outdated decision making.
Without knowing highly technical chinese, who knows. But to be honest, there’s no reason to think the picture is that drastically different. Probably a complicated combination of all the factors and more.
I agree the onset of stuff like cheap cheap sodium batteries could be further game changers.
They are both right and that’s why there is a need for grid storage for selling that excess during the night. a planned economy without the profit motive so that technology that is effective enough to “drive down electricity prices into the negative territory” is seen as a boon to be utilized instead of an annoyance to be compensated for. This is the realistic option because there is no solution for climate change under capitalism.
The “prices going into the negative” is because supplying too much energy to the grid can damage the infrastructure. Grid storage would be thensolution a planned economy comes up with here.
yeah people don’t often realize that electricity is generated on demand. You flick a switch and 50km away instantly some turbine has to work harder for producing it. you can’t store electricity as is, it’s not an liquid being pumped in and out of the grid. Electric grids are a massive balancing act of keeping the capacity constantly at the sweet spot where lights stay on, but also that the substations don’t catch fire. You really can’t wish for the sun to shine brighter or dimmer when there is excess or not enough demand, but you can increase the heat output of an nuclear reactor…
While it’s not really on issue on a smaller scale, but with mass solar/wind/wave/etc. adoption the issue is not just the battery arrays that are needed, it’s the fact that grid infrastructure itself has to be able to cope with huge excesses and potential total starvation of electricity (yeah you can plan around day night-cycles) and the fact that the power might be coming from million different small providers that can be producers or consumers at different times of the day, instead of like a dozen powerplants which supply a city. If you move the coal, gas and oil out and discard nuclear then you have basically no stable baseline power and no reactivity if demand suddenly spikes or production drops (2 ton spinning turbine can resist sudden changes in grid voltage drops) in the grid and it’s all on batteries and the grid needs to be able to handle that since batteries can’t spike their output as high on demand without catching fire. Nuclear is drop in replacement and it lessens that fragility of the grid over mass solar. With SMRs and legal reforming the cost and build time can be brought down. Both of which are kinda artificial issues anyway brought on by the paranoia of Chernobyl and three mile island.
Yep that is true. I meant to refer more to the fact that the MIT twitter account named loss of profit as the primary issue instead of the infrastructure damage.
They are both kinda right and that’s why there is a need for grid storage for selling that excess during the night.
I’m still more of nuclear guy myself
The time for building nuclear was 30 years ago. They’re pointless now. Renewables are now cheaper (even including storage), and faster to build, and more likely to be community-owned or decentralised. There is just no reason to build anything else.
There is a reason to build nuclear if you actually hate renewables but know that it’s uncool to say that you do, so you shill nuclear to appear hip and cool
Source?
There are a lot of factors. But for most of the world, yes, renewables + storage is cheaper than any other option already:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-and-solar-power-half-the-cost-of-coal-and-gas-one-third-the-cost-of-nuclear-says-lazard/
https://energyfactcheck.com.au/2025/01/18/are-renewables-more-expensive-than-coal-gas-and-nuclear/
https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-along
Even in cold, darker places like Sweden:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924010882
https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.03679
The cost of battery storage projects has declined over 90% since 2010. Solar farms became over 20% cheaper just this year.. Conservative estimates put a further 20-50% drop in prices for various renewables + energy storage solutions over the next 10 years..
The race is over in most the world now, even if you could build a nuclear plant in a day. But given how long nuclear takes to build (still averaging over 6 years, many much longer). It’ll be surprising if any nuclear plant started now would be viable anywhere by the time it’s up and running.
Thanks a lot for providing the sources.
I’m a solar energy nerd myself and watching the prices of LiFePO4 batteries over the past 2 years has been astonishing, I wonder what will happen with sodium batteries in the upcoming years. I wasn’t aware of the overall economic maturity of solar+storage as of today, and it’s impressive.
My only argument is: the prices for nuclear in all sources you’ve sent, from what I’ve seen, are in the west. US, Sweden, Denmark… China is planning to build 150GW of nuclear over the next 5 years, and more afterwards. What would be the environmental impact and the cost of Chinese new-gen nuclear when compared with Chinese PV+wind+storage? The data for China is hard to find in English unfortunately.
Given that China is probably always 5+ years ahead of us both in nuclear and renewable generation tech, it’s hard to know…
China has a lot of different terrains, it may be more suitable locations that do make economic sense, it may be to just utilise existing industrial chains to maximise the speed with which they can ramp up energy production, maybe the new-gen nuclear is somehow that much magically better, or it may just be outdated decision making.
Without knowing highly technical chinese, who knows. But to be honest, there’s no reason to think the picture is that drastically different. Probably a complicated combination of all the factors and more.
I agree the onset of stuff like cheap cheap sodium batteries could be further game changers.
yes, sources please
Yeah provided
They are both right and that’s why there is a need for
grid storage for selling that excess during the night.a planned economy without the profit motive so that technology that is effective enough to “drive down electricity prices into the negative territory” is seen as a boon to be utilized instead of an annoyance to be compensated for. This is the realistic option because there is no solution for climate change under capitalism.The “prices going into the negative” is because supplying too much energy to the grid can damage the infrastructure. Grid storage would be thensolution a planned economy comes up with here.
yeah people don’t often realize that electricity is generated on demand. You flick a switch and 50km away instantly some turbine has to work harder for producing it. you can’t store electricity as is, it’s not an liquid being pumped in and out of the grid. Electric grids are a massive balancing act of keeping the capacity constantly at the sweet spot where lights stay on, but also that the substations don’t catch fire. You really can’t wish for the sun to shine brighter or dimmer when there is excess or not enough demand, but you can increase the heat output of an nuclear reactor…
While it’s not really on issue on a smaller scale, but with mass solar/wind/wave/etc. adoption the issue is not just the battery arrays that are needed, it’s the fact that grid infrastructure itself has to be able to cope with huge excesses and potential total starvation of electricity (yeah you can plan around day night-cycles) and the fact that the power might be coming from million different small providers that can be producers or consumers at different times of the day, instead of like a dozen powerplants which supply a city. If you move the coal, gas and oil out and discard nuclear then you have basically no stable baseline power and no reactivity if demand suddenly spikes or production drops (2 ton spinning turbine can resist sudden changes in grid voltage drops) in the grid and it’s all on batteries and the grid needs to be able to handle that since batteries can’t spike their output as high on demand without catching fire. Nuclear is drop in replacement and it lessens that fragility of the grid over mass solar. With SMRs and legal reforming the cost and build time can be brought down. Both of which are kinda artificial issues anyway brought on by the paranoia of Chernobyl and three mile island.
Yep that is true. I meant to refer more to the fact that the MIT twitter account named loss of profit as the primary issue instead of the infrastructure damage.