As promised, here's a more detailed comparison between the two competitors for the electric grid's base load. We'll break it down into a few key categories.
Capital Costs and Construction Time
The "capital costs" of a power plant are the net total costs of licensing, construction, and any other one-time purchases associated with the creation of the plant, but not its operation. To aid in objective comparison between power plants of different power levels, capital cost is usually given in units of dollars per kilowatt ($/kW).
We've been building and using coal plants for a long time now, at least compared to nuclear. The process is pretty streamlined, the components cheap, and the licensing relatively easy. The end result is a usual capital cost around 1800-2000 $/kW. [1]
Nuclear, on the other hand, doesn't look as good. A long and expensive licensing process, components that are both made from expensive materials and expensive to machine, and a long construction time all lead to capital costs around double those expected from coal (3500-4000 $/kW) [2]. So as much as it pains me, nuclear definitely comes in second for this topic.
Fuel and Operating Costs
Nuclear very quickly makes up for its expensive start when you consider its costs once it starts operating. An easy comparison to make is in the fuel each plant uses, and its energy density. "Energy density" is the amount of energy released by a full combustion/fission reaction in a kilogram of fuel.
The average average density of coal is a reasonable 8 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per kilogram. The average energy density of uranium-235 is over three million times greater, at 24 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per kilogram. To produce the same amount of power in a coal plant as a nuclear plant, trainloads of coal are required to match the energy production of a lump of uranium. [3]
Combine this with the fact that uranium is surprisingly cheap, and nuclear plants produce much cheaper power than coal.
Part two will come later this weekend, and cover health and environmental effects of the two.
[1] http://schlissel-technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf
[2] http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
[3] https://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/f/fuelcomparison.htm
very interesting! thanks for posting. I wasn't as familiar with actual quantitative comparison on these two factors. The energy density difference is pretty staggering.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it? Even with coal being almost as cheap as dirt it still makes uranium a much more cost effective power source. We just need to make the equipment that turns the uranium into power cheaper! And it's that energy density that makes it far more potentially dangerous than coal.
DeleteI really enjoyed this blog. I definitely appreciate this really in depth analysis between coal and nuclear. Its funny that we choose similar topics to post on as well. I wrote about how coal and fossil fuels could be estimated to runout ny 2088 while uranium may be good for another 200 years. http://randomnuclearthoughts.blogspot.com/2016/03/coal-vs-nuclear-ultimate-showdown.html?showComment=1457818156935#c2069845907516152958
ReplyDeleteWhile I disagree with the estimate on the reserves of fossil fuels, the conclusion that nuclear is the better option still stands strong.
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ReplyDeleteI'm actually surprised by the capital cost of nuclear power plants. To be honest, despite costing 2 to 3 times as much, I expected it to be significantly higher than that.
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