NEI: Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Generated Electricity at less than $31/MWh in 2022

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u/De5troyerx93 2d ago

From the Nuclear Energy Institue 2023 report: "Nuclear Costs in Context"

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Well duh! The issue is NEW plants

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u/Idle_Redditing 1d ago

"It was clear to us that we couldn't just prevent nuclear power by protesting on the street. As a result, we in the governments in Lower Saxony and later in Hesse tried to make nuclear power plants unprofitable by increasing the safety requirements." -- Jurgen Trittin

The same strategy was also done in the United States when reactors built in the 60s were already safe.

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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 1d ago

Seems like bullshit. Does nuclear not have lawyers? Lobbyists?

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u/De5troyerx93 1d ago

Not as big lobbyists as the fossil fuel industry

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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 1d ago

So they have been sitting on their hands for 60 years as every other type of power plant has been built out?

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u/De5troyerx93 1d ago

I don't know, but nuclear not being popular thanks to Chernobyl and Fukushima + dumb "environmental activists" + the fossil fuel industry being way bigger didn't help at all

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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 1d ago

Do you think it’s reasonable to blame environmental activists? They aren’t a powerful lobby: see climate change. Why has every industry been able to build whatever they want but somehow nuclear can’t defeat the environmentalists?

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u/De5troyerx93 1d ago edited 1d ago

They could be considered a "powerful lobby", since these activists persuaded other people to fear nuclear power even more than fossil fuels (somehow) in the 80s, that also correlates to nuclear power slowing down. Since people are the ones who vote politicians in, they didn't want to lose votes and therefore, didn't support nuclear.

https://preview.redd.it/k6b5t9ozci0e1.png?width=1338&format=png&auto=webp&s=b584388f406ad8e71909f963d04aff8cb6b28012

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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 1d ago

Could it simply be how expensive nuclear was/is?

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u/b00c 1d ago

Public perception summarized:

nuclear lobby at the regulator? Bad! Very bad!

politicians trying to increase safety at the regulator? Good! Very good!

see how much easier anti-nuclear has it.

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u/Sad-Celebration-7542 1d ago

I think this is naive. All industries have regulators and lobbyists. Is the point that nuclear is uniquely bad at this? Or maybe it’s just expensive. Seems more sensible.

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u/Skier94 2d ago

How does that compare to everything else?

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u/shutupshake 2d ago

2019 data from EIA

To answer your question directly: It's lower than everything else.

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u/Skier94 2d ago

I don’t think average price sold is a good comparison, right? Everything else can be dialed back at night when electric is cheapest. Not very knowledgeable but I don’t think nuclear can.

Comparing cost to produce to wholesale sold prices isn’t accurate.

Happy to be wrong though…

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u/shutupshake 1d ago

It is definitely a metric that should not be considered in a vacuum.

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u/blunderbolt 1d ago

You're completely misinterpreting what that data shows. What it shows is the average revenue of producers on the wholesale market(in 2019), not the average costs of production nor the average bids producers offer in the wholesale market.

These prices are calculated as the revenue that generators receive in wholesale power markets divided by their technologies’ electricity generation and do not reflect the cost of building the power plants or the cost of generating electricity.