![big reactors auto turn off big reactors auto turn off](https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FT8bi2SI.png)
These costs were acknowledged in a 2012 brochure for an industry conference devoted to what are called small modular reactors (SMRs). projects mentioned above-a pair of 1,117-MW reactors being built near Jenkinsville, S.C.-is $11 billion. For example, the latest estimate for one of the two U.S. These per-megawatt costs translate into billions of dollars. Nuclear’s high costs result directly from the very high costs of building a reactor-estimated by Lazard at $5.4 million to $8.3 million for each megawatt. Compare that with $61 to $87 for a natural-gas combined-cycle plant, $37 to $81 for wind turbines, and $72 to $86 for utility-scale solar. According to a 2014 report by the Wall Street advisory firm Lazard, the cost of generating a megawatt-hour of electricity from a new nuclear reactor (without considering government subsidies, including those for liability for severe accidents) is between US $92 and $132. Compared with other types of electricity generation, nuclear power is expensive. In the United States, the number of operating nuclear power plants has slipped below 100, with the recent shutdown of the Vermont Yankee plant.Ī fundamental reason for this decline is indeed economic. Globally, nuclear power produced about 11 percent of all electricity in 2013, down from its high of 17.6 percent in 1996, according to data from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014.
![big reactors auto turn off big reactors auto turn off](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aZqAKz9bvtw/mqdefault.jpg)
Two new nuclear projects now under way in the United States were the first to be awarded construction licenses in the country since the late 1970s. The idea is that by reducing the substantial financial risk of a full-scale nuclear project, small reactors are the best option for kick-starting a much-discussed revival of nuclear power.Īlthough concerns about climate change have led energy planners to retain nuclear power as an option, the technology remains in stasis or decline throughout the Americas and Europe. A tantalizing proposition has taken hold again in the nuclear industry: that small nuclear reactors have economic and other advantages over the standard-size ones being built today.