In comparing power costs we should firstly add subsidies then divide by capacity factor. So if wind power was quoted at $40 per Mwh then add say $35 for LGCs so we're up to $75. Now divide by 30% capacity factor and we get $250 per Mwh. That is a proxy for a large overbuild with free energy storage during lulls. Now if nuclear was $100 per Mwh with no green certificate income dividing by 92% c.f. we get $109 cost.

The likely first SMR NuScale say they can sell power for $US60 per Mwh. They can also load follow to some extent thus eliminate the need for the expensive gas balancing of wind and solar. In California as PV declines in the afternoon they have to ramp up 13 GW of mostly gas fired power. That should really be factored into the cost of renewables. The NuScale pack of 12 modules may sell for about $US5 bn for 720 MW or about $7/w capacity.

Then there is the vexing question why do we still have coal if wind and solar are so cheap. Why hasn't Germany reduced emissions for a decade despite $25bn a year in renewables subsidies? Why does French electricity have 50 grams of CO2 per average kwh and Australia has 820?

Jim Green,

Your costs for intermittent renewables (wind and solar) are not comparable with costs from dispatchable generators such as fossil fuels and nuclear. To be comparable you must include the substantially higher grid costs and the cost of sufficient storage to make them fully comparable with the dispatchable technologies.

Secondly, you should acknowledge that nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity and always has been – since 1954 when the first power reactor began sending power to the grid.

For this reason, you should also include the health externality in the cost of electricity from each technology to compare like with like. When you do that, nuclear is by far the cheapest.

Thirdly, you should acknowledge that nuclear power could now be around 5–10% of its current cost [1] if not for the disruption, caused by the anti-nuclear protest movement – of which you are a classic example.

Further, if not for that disruption, nuclear could have replace around 100% of coal and 76% of gas generation by now, avoiding up to 9.5 million deaths and 174 Gt CO2 emissions [1].

That’s the damage the anti-nuclear protest movement has done.

[1] https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169

Four pages of rationalising, & he still has to wriggle like a worm, twisting the whole story to get the story he wants.

Risible rubbish in, risible rubbish out by well known anti-nuclear activist, moribund Ideologue, Jim Green.

Who, when it comes to nuclear energy and comparative costs, doesn't know his ass from his elbow.
Or is stuck in the 19th century/moribund in the extreme?

Simply put and extrapolating from the published results from Oak Ridge, The cost of MSR thorium would come in at around 3 cents PKWH.

Compare these numbers. A 350 MW light water reactor, will over the course of a thirty-year operational lifetime, require 2551 ton of (as rare as platinum) enriched uranium, will burn less than a ton and create 2550+ tons of highly toxic waste.

[This is were anti-nuclear activist, Jim Green gets his (cherry-picked) less than favourable comparative cherry-picked numbers from? And crafted so it favours renewables over all else?]

As usual, ignored by the cherry-picking Activist, is the fact that an MSR thorium, (FUJI [CARBON FREE] 350MW) Will use in a (CARBON FREE) comparable lifetime, just one ton of (CARBON FREE) thorium and this source of (CARBON FREE) fuel as common as lead. THesse costs further reduced to below a cent PKWH is these (CARBON FREE) reactors are tasked with VERY SAFELY burning the world's stockpile of (CARBON FREE) nuclear waste! And paid annual billions for the service!

Someone genuinely concerned with carbon-induced climate change or the growing stockpile of nuclear waste? And our CABON REDUCED economy, turbocharged and sent into overdrive! Would surely want both outcomes!

Moreover, because this reactor operates at normal atmospheric pressure. and is self-regulating! It is, walk away safe and may be left very safely unattended for months at a time! The security guard out front costs more than the fuel.

Jim will ask as is the want of all anti-nuclear activists, if it's so good why doesn't everybody have one, or show me the reactor?

Hard to show something that has been prohibited to protect the profit curve of the fossil fuel industry, big nuclear and big pharma alike, and in that context, ably supported by advocates just like Jim Green! TBC.
Alan B.

When it comes right down to it, we have Just two choices for dispatchable reliable 24/7 energy. And a choice between, a fossil-fueled system or a nuclear-powered one! If one is concerned about health and safety issues, or actually, effectively, finally addressing climate change, then the very best by far and away option is and has to be nuclear, and the very safest form is MSR!

The cheapest nuclear fuel is thorium! Suggest you look at a couple of videos Alan Goulding has posted on his Facebook page, to see how many deaths are attributable to comparable power sources.

The alleged "war" between super funds is a fire, activists like Jim Green, pour allegorical petrol on!

And as usual for this author and most Australian politicians/decision makers, studiously ignore the fact that MSR technology may be used as, nuclear waste burners that VERY SAFELY also generate virtually free electricity, with CARBON FEE FUEL! The cheapest reported renewables are located in an oil-rich desert! As a vast solar voltaic array that produces power during daylight hours at around 5 cents PKWH.

Even so, one simply cannot ignore the production of, mountains of toxic waste generated at the point of manufacture, and this waste eventually enters our oceans, the lungs of the planet, via highly polluted waterways!

Something Jim Green and his Ideologically driven cohort of moribund numbskulls adroitly avoid! Just as if it was never ever part of the conversation!

Just goes on and on with his brainwashed, broken record rhetoric!

Plug it in switch it on and lower the needle and hey presto, Jim Green endlessly repeats his time-worn idealogical (Putin) response to CARBON FREE (alternative to fossil fuels) nuclear energy!

Rember to check, Alan Goulding's Facebook page, for some extremely interesting, videos of, entirely informative and verifiable facts!

You'll be amazed at the scientifically verifiable energy comparisons!
Alan B.

We all know what Jim Green thinks without the need to read about it.