What's cheaper, wind power or nuclear?

[jwl]

Quite simply, I've heard a few people and newspapers saying wind power is cheaper In the UK than nuclear. Is it?

[Surlethe]

What measure of cost are they using?

Edit: That is, economic cost? Accounting cost? Total cost at current level of capitalization? Marginal cost? Cost of investment into infrastructure? Marginal cost once investment has occurred? Average costs? None of the above?

[madd0ct0r]

i'm interested in the answer.

[Spoonist]

Actually it is both. As Surlethe is pointing out there are very many ways to calculate cost and price per unit. So if you count one way it will be wind if you count the other it will be nuclear.

If you skip things like insurance, long term interest, military protection, storage and handling of waste then Nuclear energy is very very cheap.
That is the traditional way to calculate it because all of those things are normally not handled by the companies but rather by the states/countries those companies supply. That means that when the company sets the price per unit it will not cover those types of costs and the end result being that the spot price for nuclear energy is very very low, it can only be beat by hydro which has a similar cost reduction by states but also which doesn't have the added nasty side effects which increase the costs for the state that nuclear has.

Now wind isn't cheap unless we are talking micro scale. On macro scale it is really expensive for a bunch of reasons, but the most important being that the engergy grid and market isn't built around such fluctuating power sources. Wind will procude a lot when windy-duh- and crap when not windy-duh. Added to this is if you are running old tech wind farms they cant handle stronger winds than X where X is proportional to how old the farm is. This means that some wind farms will produce a lot as the wind grows and then at the cut off point suddenly go negative.
Then the old grids can't handle the surplus surges leading to increased costs down the line and increased reliance on gas/oil plants to fill the gap when not windy or when too windy (and cloudy for solar).

So the complex answer is neither and both depending on what calculations you make.
However what most misses is that they are complementary, in that those energy economies that diversify is usually much more cost efficient in the exploitation of local geography and local governement than an economy which would only have energy sources supplied on state level.

In the Uk for instance there are regions which are really suitable for wind farms. Not to utuilize such geographical advantages is stupid. Just like building nuclear would be in Iceland or Norway due to geography. However to provide a decent baseline in the huge industrial demand countries there is almost nothing that beats nuclear.

[Sky Captain]

If you skip things like insurance, long term interest, military protection, storage and handling of waste then Nuclear energy is very very cheap.

A major dam accident easily can be as expensive and potentially far more deadly than nuclear meltdown. If Fukushima is an example there is plenty of time to evacuate nearby areas if something goes seriously wrong. Even Chernobyl would have caused far less severe health issues if evacuation were done more competently.
A dam failure can happen so quickly or flood area so large evacuation is simply impossible.

[aerius]

Cheaper for what? Per unit of power? Per unit of energy? What are the time horizons, scales, and subsidies? Without knowing the base assumptions and what they're referring to when they say cost, there's no way to answer the question.

[Spoonist]

If you skip things like insurance, long term interest, military protection, storage and handling of waste then Nuclear energy is very very cheap.

A major dam accident easily can be as expensive and potentially far more deadly than nuclear meltdown. If Fukushima is an example there is plenty of time to evacuate nearby areas if something goes seriously wrong. Even Chernobyl would have caused far less severe health issues if evacuation were done more competently.
A dam failure can happen so quickly or flood area so large evacuation is simply impossible.

Yes, and? Did you have a valid point on costs anywhere hidden in that?
Stuff like that was already covered in the "it can only be beat by hydro which has a similar cost reduction by states"...

But most of the things you say is simply not true in context due to what you are trying to imply. So even though your post has no relevance I feel forced to address it nonetheless.

Most hydro power installations are not the gargantuan ones, instead it’s small to midsized ones which wouldn't cause a catastrophe if they failed, and which due to their size are much less likely to fail spectacularly rather than slowly over years completely preventable by maintenance. This is especially true in regions where nuclear isn't an option - ie poor regions. While nuclear by their function must and should be gargantuan installations to be economically viable and have an increased safety.

If a large dam failure can happen so quickly that evacuation is "simply impossible" then someone hasn't done their jobs, which is again part of the cost reduction by states, but in that case that the state skimped on such costs. Stress deterioration detection is relatively easy/cheap and worst case scenario effect reduction is very straight forward. It is part of the dam building prospect to show calculations for the effects of limited and worst case scenarios. Building habitats downstream from a dam without a shit-hits-the-fan plan is a political decision, not one related to the tech itself. Also newer designs with multi-tiered dams and drop zones reduces such risks and effects tremendously.

Agreed that confirmed deaths directly related to the accident will be higher for spectacular dam failures than for nuclear plant failures. I'm surprised you didn't mention Fujinuma in context. That is directly linked to how the two things kill people differently. But that doesn't necessarily mean that actual deaths or health issues over time would be less, rather the opposite.
And such a comment completely misses the long term effects on the region and its economy. Like cleaning up a dam failure is so much cheaper than cleaning up after a nuclear plant failure. Or that when a dam fails you can actually rebuild it on the same spot while that isn't really an option with nuclear failures. (While usually politically not viable). Another such thing would be how large an evacuation would have to be or for how long it is necessary.

So no - hydro accidents or prevention is not as costly for the state+company when compared to nuclear. That is why we have such massive amounts of more rules and regulations for nuclear installations than we do for hydro.
But yes agreed that a "major dam accident" often is trivialized in the press over nuclear, but no that is not undeservedly so. It’s simply an effect of how we also react to ordinary flooding in areas we don’t care about.

[His Divine Shadow]

If you skip things like insurance, long term interest, military protection, storage and handling of waste then Nuclear energy is very very cheap.
That is the traditional way to calculate it because all of those things are normally not handled by the companies but rather by the states/countries those companies supply.

The calculations I've seen and that has been posted on this site before over the years have as far as I can recall, almost all mentioned that the whole fuel cycle cost is embedded in the price for nuclear, mining, refining and final longterm storage. I remember this because that was a big deal to the people releasing the studies.

[Spoonist]

If you skip things like insurance, long term interest, military protection, storage and handling of waste then Nuclear energy is very very cheap.
That is the traditional way to calculate it because all of those things are normally not handled by the companies but rather by the states/countries those companies supply.

The calculations I've seen and that has been posted on this site before over the years have as far as I can recall, almost all mentioned that the whole fuel cycle cost is embedded in the price for nuclear, mining, refining and final longterm storage. I remember this because that was a big deal to the people releasing the studies.

Without examples it is not clear what numbers you are talking about here. The ones used as assessments for political decisions, or the one for the spot price on the actual electricity market. For the market what you are saying would only be true in politicians speak, not in reality.
Waste has not been part of the costs traditionally in the UK. Instead it is a big deal that future plants will cover the costs privately. IIRC it was not until the new regulations in the Energy Act in 2004 that this changed for most of the UK. You can see most of that here
http://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/profiles/UK_report_web.pdf
so I'd seriously question such calculations in the UK. The EDF certainly doesn't include that in the spot price today.

Production is sort of included due to it being the private firm buying it on the semi-open market. But secondary costs for the state/country with the producer isn't, since it would be very hard to calculate and regulate.

Insurance and thus handling of larger accidents for all the steps are not and probably cannot be fully privatized. That is true for the whole life cycle mining, refining, in the plant, waste and storage, transports for all of those etc etc. These are definately not in any calculations on spot price. Instead most countries run on a limited liability clause set after the 2004 Paris/Brussels Protocol.
In the UK specifically this is a cutoff point of £140 million as per the Energy Act. This is handled by big conglomerates of insurance bureaus like
http://www.nuclear-risk.com/aboutUs.asp
You can read more about it here
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safet ... ar-Damage/
etc

Then we haven't even started on the energy grids issues with nuclear startups and shutdowns.

But the really telling part is that after the privatization in countries like the UK the feasability of such projects have diminished rapidly. The spot price on the end product is simply not competetive enough. You can see this in projects like Horizon etc. Even nuclear friendly countries like France has much harder time calculating realistic ROI for nuclear plants. This is resulting in the UK of a new debate on how to "incentivize" the nuclear industry (yes that is the political codeword for subsidice without being a subsidy)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7179579.stm
One way of doing that is reverse green tax on Co2 emissions...

Another telling part is how little resistance these huge companies gave when Germany did its "lets shut this down" order. It was a perfect moment to get out of lots of the winding down and decomissioning costs which they would otherwise had got. This because Germany is fameously one of the countries without a limited liability.

It is only in countries where the governement heavily subsidize and is willing to take lots of the risk management costs that you see contintued development of nuclear plants.
That doesn't mean that nuclear is a bad choice or that this is unique for nuclear etc like critics claim, it just means that it is a calculated risk that mostly pays out, and the only entity to be able to take such risks are the state/countries themselves. Private firms are not the best form for this.
And almost all energy sources take governement subsidy to make profitable in the current market. It would be really bad for growth and the economy if the governement didn't.
Arguments for no subsidies at all ignores reality of infrastructure and current market economy.

[His Divine Shadow]

Well here it shows calculated prices, taking into account waste disposal and decommissioning costs:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Econo ... YI557Xh38c

Sure in some countries the govt stands for it and in others they don't, it varies a lot as we know since countries have different systems. However and the estimated prices there reflect that those costs have been taken into consideration.

[Spoonist]

That made no difference at all to any of what I said.

Three major points
1. Those are political numbers not actual spot price on the market. Like I said above "The ones used as assessments for political decisions, or the one for the spot price on the actual electricity market. For the market what you are saying would only be true in politicians speak, not in reality."
2. None of those numbers related to the OP question which was specific to the UK.
3. They include a projected carbon cost price not in effect in reality. Coal is much much cheaper in reality than stated in the study.

Lots of minor points
1. They do not include transmission and distribution costs.
2. They do not include backup costs.
3. They do not include security of supply.
4. The caveat about non-qualative data due to the privatisation in europe etc.
5. No reliable projection of decomissioning nuclear plants.
6. Lots of plants in the study was made based on political agendas driving prices up. Yet they are treated the same as if private.
7. It assumes that promised tech will behave according to projection, when that is usually not the case.
8. It ignores military costs etc.
9. They limit the impact of interest.

They also basically ignore hydro. Which as per their numcalculations the cheapest source in China but the most expensive in Europe without any explanation.
That is because they include land costs for hydro but not for the others in europe, making the numbers look like hydro is the most expensive of all. Which is truly insane.