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Comment by crdoconnor | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear has shown no particular inclination to come down in price whereas renewables have.

It's just not cost effective without both massive implicit and explicit government subsidies.

Renewables are cost effective now and will only become more so.

They're cost effective when the sun is shining or wind is blowing but are strongly tied to increased high carbon fracked natural gas otherwise. When batteries are used the Energy Return on Investment drops below what's necessary to sustain industrialized civilization (around 5:1).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399

Even without including cost overruns and decomissioning, wind energy costs the same per kilowatt of capacity[0,1].

And the actually produced energy as share of capacity (= the capacity factor) is way better than most think. For the nuclear plants in France it currently is just over 70%, while it is about 50% globally for offshore wind parks [2,3]

[0] http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-nuclear-epr/frances-e...

[2] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/wind-energy-factsheet

[3] https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20170912wnisr2017...

Edit: Changed phrasing because it apparently sounded like the 50% capacity factor also referred to France.

You are completely wrong on your numbers, in France in 2018 nuclear has a capacity factor of 71% and wind of 21,1%

https://bilan-electrique-2018.rte-france.com/eolien/

Also there is currently no offshore wind park, as only offshore would approach the 50% capacity factor, but they won't, they will be in the 43% as estimated by renewables.ninja

The price of the MWh of offsore park will be from 44 to 150€/MWh, where EDF is forced to sell its nuclear at 42€/MWh, average price of wind in 2020 93€/MWh.

It sounds like you confirmed their nuclear capacity factor ("just over 70%") and pointed out that French wind farms have a lower capacity factor (21.1%) than wind farms on average. I don't think that constitutes evidence that they are "completely wrong on [their] numbers".

Price and capacity factor where completely wrong for wind, also current wind subsidies are about 93€/MWh.

They were citing worldwide capacity factors and prices for wind, not French ones, which I agree are much worse.

That was not obvious, it was written like a French nuclear with French wind comparison. And also that is misleading because comparing the low capacity factor of French nuclear because it is used for load following and curtailed in summer because it is scaled for winter usage using restive heating. And comparing it to offshore with intermittent power, not dispatchable in the best location, does not make sense. With penetration wind will also be curtailed, and is already happening in china and Germany.

Let's look at actual and current numbers for construction costs, ignoring subsidies:

Wind: "The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed." http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost

Nuclear: " Companies that are planning new nuclear units are currently indicating that the total costs (including escalation and financing costs) will be in the range of $5,500/kW to $8,100/kW or between $6 billion and $9 billion for each 1,100 MW plant." https://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/SynapsePa...

I was giving actual current feed in tariff for French wind.

Then it's now my turn to call your numbers misleading ;) I don't think you can directly compare the two that way because a) The French government heavily invested in nuclear for strategic reasons, not directly economical ones. The EDF still is essentially state-run. We can't really infer cost arguments from this. b) Practically all nuclear plants in France are decades old, and had many years for recouping initial investments. Current market prices for energy are therefore not a good argument for costs of newly built plants.

If we look at the costs of constructing new nuclear plants (which the article we comment on is about), France is a particularly bad example, with current costs already at $11B for 1600MW of capacity for the Flamanville project. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-nuclear-flamanville/e...

I'm a bit confused where we disagree? You posted the same capacity factor for nuclear. Here is a real world example of a Danish wind farm averaging 47.7% over 7 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_Rev_Offshore_Wind_Farm#H...

I disagree that current onshore wind in France is not 50%, only 21%; also maybe you were comparing the low capacity factor of French nuclear because it is used for load following and curtailed in summer because it is scaled for winter usage using restive heating. And comparing it to offshore with intermitttent power, not dispatchable in the best location. Totally misleading.

You are right, it wasn't my intention to imply the 50% refer to France. I'll try to edit the phrasing.

I don't get why you think comparing to offshore wind is misleading, though. Could you expand on that?

Comparing worst capacity factor (for cited reasons) with best CF without saying it is offshore in some of the best location is misleading. Also is comparing dispatchable and intermittent/fatal. There a other factors to consider like reserve ratio, or how the production can cover the power needs over the year, it gives hints at how you need to scale seasonal storage.

I see, thanks. 50% isn't that much of an outlier, though, as the average over both onshore and offshore farms seems to be 42% for younger projects: http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/wind-energy-factsheet

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