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One of the arguments I've seen levied against nuclear power is that it's not economically viable.

In the 1970s nuclear power cost half as much as electricity from coal burning: by 1990 nuclear power cost twice as much as electricity from coal burning (Slingerland et al, 2004 [possible ref]. Today the costs of nuclear power are estimated to be, on average, between 2 and 4 times more expensive than electricity generated by burning fossil fuels, about $0.05-0.07/kWh. [emph. in original]

Compared with some modern renewable energy sources, nuclear power has mixed fortunes: for example it is more expensive than wind, about the same price as hydroelectric power and cogeneration with gasified wood, and cheaper than solar energy using photovoltaic (PV) cells (Öko Institute, 1997 [possible ref]).

Therefore, it isn't a reasonable replacement for coal over wind, co-gen, etc.
For example, US nuclear power generation is federally subsidized, but how does that stack up against the extra burden imposed by complying with additional regulation?

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Nick T
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    US Nuclear industry is a VERY VERY poor data set to base any facts on. We have extremely aged plant designs, as well as, as per your note, extreme regulatory burden imposed largely for political reasons (as discussed elsewhere on SE - eg http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1039/is-the-quantity-of-death-caused-by-nuclear-accidents-smaller-then-those-caused-b) – user5341 Dec 24 '11 at 06:52
  • @DVK I didn't figure such, I just don't know how to cut through all the "facts" to the truth, hence the question. – Nick T Dec 24 '11 at 10:14
  • Generalized the question a bit, the question shouldn't be US-only – Sklivvz Dec 24 '11 at 11:23
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    @NickT - Any analysis which doesn't include at least pebble bed reactors, and ideally some stuff that's closer to Gen IV than Gen III isn't going to be very useful – user5341 Dec 24 '11 at 12:42
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    "economically untenable" might be OK if we weight concern about carbon emissions high enough. After all, there are lots of uneconomic renewable technologies being proposed to curb carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuel. More seriously we might need to define economically untenable at a specific point in time like today so it depends on the current price of fossil fuels otherwise the answer will depend on the timescale of the economic evaluation. – matt_black Dec 24 '11 at 22:24
  • @matt_black - +1. Fossil fuel prices are extremely likely to rise - and that's not even accounting for transportation costs that are frequently a function of oil costs (which is even more likely to rise than coal or gas itself) – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 20:47
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    @DVK: Some of those "regulatory burdens" are preventing a second Chernobyl, though. I suspect there's a cost-vs-safety tradeoff that needs to be factored in here. How much are you willing to spend to prevent a disaster? Is it good enough to be safer on average than every other power source? – endolith Apr 06 '12 at 18:43
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    @endolith - if you understood what exactly happened at Chernobyl, you'd know that none of the regulations are aimed at preventing a second one. – user5341 Apr 06 '12 at 20:36
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    @DVK: That's a vague, condescending response. – endolith Apr 06 '12 at 20:47
  • Is there any significant claim that it's cheap? – gerrit Jan 28 '13 at 22:15
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    If you think about it, you will come to the conclusion that fossil fuel power plants are also "economically untenable." They spew out pollution and create CO2. The effects are simply left for everyone else to deal with. If the operators had to be as clean as nuclear plants, you couldn't pay for the power generated. So, there's hidden costs in the other power plant figures that are made visible for nuclear power. – JRE Mar 12 '19 at 09:23
  • I wonder if nuclear submarines have been discontinued, if they are economically untenable. – GEdgar Mar 12 '19 at 21:28
  • @GEdgar for military hardware the mission requirements trump economics in many cases. The US Navy nuclear powered cruisers WERE retired because they were too expensive to operate as compared to conventional powered ships that could do the same work. For their submarines, where the ability to remain submerged for weeks or months is vital, nuclear is the only available option. – jwenting Mar 13 '19 at 08:36
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    2-4 times more expensive doesn't make something economically untenable. People frequently buy stuff that is 2-4 times more expensive than they could. – DJClayworth May 21 '19 at 18:53

1 Answers1

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The lower-end of the linked claim by the Friends of the Earth is supported by the US Government figures.

The key claim in the linked article is:

Today the costs of nuclear power are estimated to be, on average, between 2 and 4 times more expensive than electricity generated by burning fossil fuels, about $0.05-0.07/kWh.

The US Energy Information Administration (part of the US Department of Energy) published the "Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2011" in November 2010.

Translated into English ("levelized"?!), that means "What cost would energy have in 2016, if we started building a new power-plant with today's technology, without any taxation subsidies?"

Table of costs
(source: eia.gov)

As can be seen, some variants of fossil fuel are in the upper end of that $0.05-0.07/kWh range. (Slightly confusingly, but appropriately for this question, the prices are in 2009 dollars.)

Advanced Nuclear prices are indeed just a smidgin under double that, at around $0.11/kWh.

So, these government figures don't support "4 times more expensive", but they are within a stone's throw of double - i.e. the lower end of the original claim.

Of course, the raw price isn't the only factor, as extrinsic costs must be considered including greenhouse gases, radioactivity, waste disposal, human safety, etc.

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Oddthinking
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    Good answer but I'm afraid this may plausibly be using figures that aren't realistic (oversimplified) by design. (1) Is this inclusive or exclusive capital expenditures of building the plant? (e.g. operating costs only)? If inclusive, it's incredibly misleading - nuclear plants are AFAIK designed to last longer than a windmill but cost a lot, meaning that using 2016 (as opposed to say 2050 to account for life of the plant) would be - by design - biased against expensive long-lived plants which nuclear plants are. – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 20:39
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    (2) Another factor likely missing here is scalability - you can't build windmills/solar all over the place, and they take a lot of area for scaled up output; sooner or later your land use cost rise.... same with transmission costs (it costs more to transmit energy from 1000 windmills than from 1 compact plant). Hydro has even bigger problem - only finite amount of places to build one. – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 20:40
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    (3) You also have to factor in costs of obtaining consumables - e.g. depending on the models you use re: peak oil and oil prices in general, cost of both gas and biomass (and possibly coal) is likely to rise significantly. Costs of uranium are likely (cit. needed) a miniscule part of nuke energy production. – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 20:42
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    (4) Another possible problem that is likely not covered is rare metal shortages. Again, (cit.needed) but I seem to recall that solar (at least PV) may soon run into major scalability issues due to one or several limited sources of specific rare metals. – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 20:45
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    @DVK, 1) According to the referenced article, the figures "are calculated based on a 30-year cost recovery period, using a real after tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of 7.4 percent". Under those assumptions, even if the plant was longer-lived than 30-years, the Net Present Value of the extra years would be greatly discounted, making their impact relatively minor. (I note the comments include claims that (a) nuclear power stations are good because they are long-lived and (b) we should discount the old power stations, they aren't as good as new ones. A mixed message there.) – Oddthinking Dec 25 '11 at 21:23
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    2) One of the reasons I encourage people to quote the original claim is so the answer can address it. The claim appears to be about what the next power station would cost, not the next 500. So scalability issues are interesting, but not relevant. Higher transmission costs for wind are explicitly included in the "Transmission Costs" column. – Oddthinking Dec 25 '11 at 21:26
  • 3) Fuel costs are included in the table under O&M - yes, nuclear has smaller costs there. Rising fuel costs are also predicted - in fact there is a lot of factors and different scenarios discussed in the larger report (Annual Energy Outlook 2011). – Oddthinking Dec 25 '11 at 21:28
  • 4) This comes back to scalability (and also the difficulty in predicting innovation in new designs, and the ability to find new sources when the economic incentive rises.) – Oddthinking Dec 25 '11 at 21:31
  • meh. Should have RTFM. Excellent clarifications - thanks! :) – user5341 Dec 25 '11 at 21:39
  • I think that the wind costs are going to show that their levelized cost will actually be much higher than is projected here. Most of the projections that were shown when T-Boone wanted us to invest had a much higher reliability during tests than is being shown in the field. – Chad Dec 28 '11 at 15:20
  • @Chad: (Confession: I had to look up who [T. Boone Pickens](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens) is.) Did you mean to say the technology he was promoting had lower reliability in the field? What makes you think that they didn't factor this in and that the same teething problems don't apply to all the new technologies? – Oddthinking Dec 28 '11 at 21:56
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    @Oddthinking - I live in Central Illinois. We have at least 30 wind farms within 100 miles of me. The common theme we are hearing is that the turbines are breaking down far more than was expected and sapping the profits that are supposed to be shared with the farmers who's land they are built on. The numbers shown on the chart are consistent with what I have in the sales pitch material. So that leads me to suspect that their projections are still using the original GE reliability numbers. – Chad Dec 29 '11 at 14:49
  • "*extrinsic costs must be considered including greenhouse gases, radioactivity, waste disposal, human safety, etc.*" One factor that almost never gets mentioned is that [Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste - Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/). "*the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.*". It's simply more blatant with nuclear waste. – Ray Butterworth Sep 26 '19 at 13:22
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    @Oddthinking it looks like you're only comparing figures in the "fixed operation and maintainance" column? isnt the important column the "Total system levelised cost" column? because it looks like you're excluding the cost of buying coal from the cost of running a coal plant. Have I misread your answer??? – Murphy Oct 04 '19 at 16:32