this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023

142 points (94.9% liked)

Green Energy

2164 readers

127 users here now

everything about energy production

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

poVoq@slrpnk.net

SteveKLord@slrpnk.net

142

Solar energy now overlaps in cost with nuclear fuel alone for "cheap" modular reactors (energy-utilities.com)

submitted 1 year ago by schroedingershat@lemmy.world to c/energy@slrpnk.net

84 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Uranium is $128.30/kg

After enrichment, conversion and fabrication that's $3400/kg for 4.95% fuel.

At 36-45MWd/kg and a net thermal efficiency of 25% or $12.5/MWh up front.

With a 90 month lead time (72 month fuel cycle and 18 months inventory) at 3% this is $16.2/MWh

Which some solar projects are now matching

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] schroedingershat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It arrived over the last 5 years.

Additionally diurnal storage is required for nuclear to meet a variable load anyway (as an 8hr battery is $2.5/W vs $20/W for additional reactor capacity). So the comparison then becomes building the nuclear reactor to run at <25% load factor vs. filling the rest of the load with any other method.