Nuclear power is much cheaper than renewables
Here I provide evidence from authoritative sources which demonstrate that nuclear power is cheaper then renewable energy. This is an edited version of a comment I posted on ‘The Conversation’ earlier today, hence the focus on Australia, but also uses international figures and compares France, Germany and Denmark.
Below are comparative electricity costs for renewables and nuclear to supply Australia’s electricity in 2050, using the CSIRO ‘MyPower’ calculator which uses the Australian Government’s 2013 figures for LCOE comparisons and projections to 2050. These are authoritative sources.
http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/MyPower.aspx
http://www.bree.gov.au/sites/default/files/files//publications/aeta/AETA-Update-Dec-13.pdf
The above are LCOE only and to understand the assumptions and the exclusions.
The following link includes estimates of the additional transmission and distribution costs and explained the limitations of this simple comparison.
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf
The key LCOE figures from the above are summarised below (but note that ‘PL 2015’ is not on a comparable basis with the other two):
Scenario: 2030 2050 PL 2015
Default (No nuclear) $105/MW $135/MWh $261/MWh
Nuclear permitted $80/MWh $85/MWh $123/MWh
Another CSIRO calculator, ‘efuture’, shows that, when nuclear is a permitted option, it provides more than 50% of Australia’s electricity by 2040 and 60% by 2050. This demonstrates that nuclear is cheaper than renewables (even in Australia where nuclear power is strongly opposed by the population and we have cheap, high quality coal close to our major demand centres). http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios
The CSIRO calculators use data from the same source, the Australian Government Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) AETA reports (linked above). So, I’ll provide an alternative approach that also demonstrates nuclear is cheaper then renewables. The table below lists renewables, nuclear and total generation in TWh for France, Germany and Denmark in 2011 (latest IEA data). The % renewables and % nuclear are shown and, last, the ranking of these countries by electricity price in the EU27 countries (Denmark highest electricity prices in EU27, Germany 2nd and France 23rd).
Electricity generation in 2011, GWh
Technology France Germany Denmark
Nuclear 442,383 107,971
biofuels 2,941 32,849 3,407
waste 4,420 11,156 1,729
geothermal 19
Solar PV 2,050 19,340 15
Solar thermal
Wind 12,235 48,883 9,774
Tide 534
Total production 561,960 608,665 35,171
Renewables 22,180 112,247 14,925
%Renewables 4% 18% 42%
% nuclear 79% 18% 0%
Price rank in EU27 23 2 1
Sources:
IEA: http://www.iea.org/statistics/statisticssearch/report/?country=DENMARK&product=electricityandheat&year=2011
EUAA attributed to IEA: http://www.euaa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/FINAL-INTERNATIONAL-PRICE-COMPARISON-FOR-PUBLIC-RELEASE-19-MARCH-2012.pdf
IEA: ‘Energy Prices and Taxes’ (currently not available): http://www.iea.org/statistics/
79% of France’s electricity was generated by nuclear power and 4% by renewables in 2011. Its electricity is nearly the cheapest in Europe.
Compare France with the two countries that are hailed by the renewables advocates as their poster child, Germany and Denmark. Denmark and Germany have the highest electricity prices in Europe.
Clearly nuclear is far cheaper than renewables. This provides evidence form a variety of authoritative sources demonstrating nuclear is cheaper than renewables.
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