I mean it is, there is a project in Georgia for a new 1.4GW natural gas plant that has a $3.3 billion budget
But, the $5 billion here isn't purely an investment in 300 MW of capacity, it's an investment in starting up the nuclear reactor factory that can start churning these things out at $1-2 billion or whatever their goal may be
Also, have to take into consideration the overall operating costs. Nuclear costs significantly more up front but over time costs much less to operate (and is much more predictable) because you don't have to buy and burn natural gas forever
Those projected future savings are to be greeted with considerable skepticism. They are not locked in by contracts. They are the kinds of projections we've seen all too often fall apart in nuclear.
The underlying mechanic here is that cost projections are being used to sell a technology. As such, there is very strong incentive to underestimate the costs. This applies to FOAK plants and to projected experience rates.
The one thing that low carbon grids around the world share is high portion of nuclear (or hydro, which you can't build unless it naturally exists). Therefore, the only thing a SMR cost should be compared to is other nuclear reactors. Natural Gas may be cheaper (startup cost), may be more expensive (ongoing fuel), or will definitely be more expensive (carbon in the atmosphere doesn't go away), but regardless there is no reason to compare nuclear to natgas.
> The one thing that low carbon grids around the world share is high portion of nuclear (or hydro, which you can't build unless it naturally exists).
This is an historical artifact. When that generating capacity was built, nuclear was the alternative to fossil fuels. It isn't today; renewables are now cheaper and faster to install.
Your argument can be seen as a way to ignore the cost decline of renewables without at first glance doing so.
(As you say, there are hydro-dominated grids with no nuclear, for example Costa Rica, which gets 98% of its electrical energy from renewables.)
I was responding to the thread, which is comparing nuclear to natural gas.
Comparing to renewables is a different story - it can be done but it's much more complex (not dispatchable, seasonally variable) but certainly renewables makes sense in some or many places, (and in all places for a portion of the supply). I'm all in favour as long as it is actually done with the intent of getting to zero CO2, and doesn't just stall when it gets to the more difficult part of the transition. So many places get to 50% annual generation as renewable and throw up their hands about the remainder and leave it on coal/oil/natural gas
> I was responding to the thread, which is comparing nuclear to natural gas.
It's comparing nuclear to alternatives, one of which is natural gas. Others are renewables. One cannot make or justify a decision on nuclear without considering all the alternatives.
Weather dependent renewables (wind, solar) are not an alternative to nuclear, even when they are perceived in this way by the public.
From point of view of an electrical grid operator only wind/solar+fossil are alternative to nuclear, if you want to maintain stable electric grid without blackout or rolling blackouts.
> Weather dependent renewables (wind, solar) are not an alternative to nuclear, even when they are perceived in this way by the public.
This is a common misconception. The reality is that coupled with storage in a cost-optimized way renewables are no more expensive than nuclear for providing 365/24/7 power and likely considerably cheaper.
Weather dependent renewables (wind, solar) without storage are not an alternative to nuclear.
Now we can discuss more precisely the kinds of storage: pumped hydro, battery storage, H2 storage, thermal energy storage, the costs and space and material needs of each kind of storage.
There are basically two kinds of storage needed: a sort term, high efficiency storage, and a longer term low-capex storage. For example, batteries for the former, and either e-fuels like hydrogen or low capex thermal for the latter.
This optimizes cost because different properties of the storage drive cost in the two cases. For the first, there are thousands of charge-discharge cycles, so high round trip efficiency pays off. For the second, there are many fewer such cycles, so efficiency has a much lower payoff; instead the name of the game is minimizing capex.
In practice the second will not be installed until later in decarbonization, especially if the storage is being used to counter rare dark-calm periods when neither wind nor solar are available for a prolonged period. But it can be done, and so little of the total energy flow would go through in that case that high per-kWh costs for that small fraction can be tolerated.
Anyway, your clarification destroys the argument that was being made that nuclear is needed.
The original argument was that renewables are alternative to nuclear:
> It's comparing nuclear to alternatives, one of which is natural gas. Others are renewables. One cannot make or justify a decision on nuclear without considering all the alternatives.
Renewables (solar, wind) alone are not alternative to nuclear, without energy storage. This additional energy storage can be: short term energy storage, long term energy storage, or fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are solar energy stored in ancient times.
China is currently building many new coal plants as an backup for solar and wind power plants.
Germany is building new gas power plants, in future possible running on H2.
> Renewables (solar, wind) alone are not alternative to nuclear, without energy storage.
So... ok? Why exactly would this be an issue? Is there some reason to consider just renewables without storage? That would be like trying to argue nuclear is useless because it also needs transmission.
all cost modeling for nuclear takes this into account into the $/mwh of power. Fuel is cheap, but you have to pay back the enormous construction capex over time through power sales. Plus, staffing, security, insurance and maintaince are massive ongoing costs. Nukes remain the most expensive way to generate power.
The only cheap nuclear watts come from facilities built a long time ago in a completely different cost environment, and had construction and insurance subsidized by the state.
Natural gas plants all have security, insurance, maintenance, and staffing. Of course there are different levels of those but those costs are not unique to nuclear plants
imagine how that number can be decreased as the plants are smaller, standardized, and more numerous. you can likely get a lot more efficiency out of the workforce when an engineer or operator can work across a dozen of these in a 200 mile radius instead of just one in the whole country. plus you need fewer training staff etc
Making plants smaller increases the number of employees per MW. Standardized might reduce the cost of construction, but how would it reduce the number of employees needed?
>but how would it reduce the number of employees needed?
A standardized reactor design that doesn't need a bespoke training control room at every single site means fewer training staff. It means the same maintenance workers and compliance workers and everyone else can be utilized more because they can cover more facilities instead of just the single site they are certified on and work at
or, you put a bunch of these small plants in one physical location and you get even more efficiency out of the workforce - only one facilties management crew, only one security team. And you'd even save money on just having one grid connection. Oh wait...
But, the $5 billion here isn't purely an investment in 300 MW of capacity, it's an investment in starting up the nuclear reactor factory that can start churning these things out at $1-2 billion or whatever their goal may be
Also, have to take into consideration the overall operating costs. Nuclear costs significantly more up front but over time costs much less to operate (and is much more predictable) because you don't have to buy and burn natural gas forever