this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Notify me if they can keep it running economically and without hidden costs.
Have others been uneconomical?
Not at all, but long term storage of exhausted nuclear rods still costs an unknown amount of money endless centuries into the future. So you can't really put a number on the final bill.
Some types of reactors can also use those waste products as fuel and in turn make them into other waste products that only last a couple hundred years, so it's not a easy calculation to make unless you know what's deployed in the future.
Eh we’ll just dump em into the Sun someday if we start running out of space here on earth.
That has been suggested for decades, problem is that if any of the transporters blow up on their way to space, you essentially have a dirty bomb covering half the planet. No bueno.
It was usually old-style (insecure) and expensive, covered with hidden funding, or new tech (somewhat secure) and even more expensive.
Depends. Right now it isnt really that impressive. Bit questionable to build new nuclear power imho.
Just given that other power sources are so much cheaper.
Then there is also the controversy of explicit and implicit subsidies. For instance here: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_summary.pdf
a report that shows historically the subsidies were enormous. Right now it seems a bit tricky to estimate - but I haven't read the report in detail.
Edit: sorry wanted to answer @qooqie
Off shore wind hehe
Why is it hydro always left out of these comparisons?
Have you got a nice big valley with an existing water flow to donate or sell to a new hydro plant?
Hydro is absolutely great (if you ignore local ecosystem ecological damage) but it has very significant land use requirements. These can make it difficult to build practically once you have most of the good spots filled in, so it's incredibly difficult to price new builds of it. Some areas may be infinite cost because the land topology simply doesn't exist. Others may have the perfect site and be relatively cheap.
All power sources have requirements. It's no reason to remove this or that one from the comparison.
Nuclear was never "really" that cheap.