The cost of nuclear energy is dominated by the need to pay back the massive construction loan. Nobody is willing to take that risk on an open electricity market, so they've signed a contract with the government to guarantee price and demand. If the price on the open market is less than the "strike price" the government will pay for the difference, and if the plant wants to supply power to the grid but the grid doesn't want it due to technical reasons the government will pay them for every kWh it could have supplied.
This in turn means nuclear power plants operate at 100% capacity 100% of the time - minus forced maintenance downtime. It can be used to supply a base load, but not to handle peak load. When there's an excess of supply, the grid is forced to turn off cheap wind/PV capacity to make space for expensive nuclear capacity.
I agree that it would indeed be nice if we could use nuclear to fill in the gaps left by a renewable grid, but the economics simply doesn't allow for it.
We have strike prices so that generators can cover the capital costs. But it will also hold prices down when the wholesale cost exceeds the strike price.
I agree that Hinckley may increase peaks and excess generation. But that will be a feature of the grid anyway. We will need storage/interconnector exports either way. And it will also help a lot with the valleys in production. That is less electricity that needs to be stored or generated using gas and diesel. Adding a couple extra GW's is useful.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-...
For every passing year renewable penetration deepens and we end up with situations like this:
> On 100 out of the 144 days since 8 March, California’s electricity demand was 100% supplied by renewable energy for at least part of the day. Solar, wind and hydroelectric energy technologies fully powered the state’s grid for at least a few minutes and for as long as ten hours for 100 days.
https://www.power-technology.com/news/california-achieves-10...
That is an incredibly hostile economical environment for a nuclear power plant, and the only thing the CFD accomplishes is higher power bills for the ratepayers.
Matt Levine writes about a gas contract where the gas supplier was obliged to deliver gas at a fixed price. However the contract required that the plant be completed. The spot price has been above the fixed price so the plant owners have been selling gas on the open market and the owners have not technically "completed" the plant on purpose (perhaps by not painting one last rivet).
I think the geography of the UK helps with offshore wind getting good capacity factors, but the general averages aren't great, often peaking at ~40%:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
As someone who lives in Ontario, Canada, I can see in real-time how wind goes up and down, while nuclear just keeps chugging along:
* https://www.ieso.ca/power-data § Supply
And nuclear is cheaper (CA$0.101/kWh) than wind ($0.147) or solar ($0.474); see Table 2:
* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...
Of course our infrastructure and/or geography may not be as well-suited for wind.
Bruce Power is responsible for decommissioning costs:
> Bruce Power receives a fixed price for its electricity generation that is inclusive of all its current costs and funding of future decommissioning liabilities in the Bruce Facility. As previously noted, the average price over the life of the contract was estimated by the IESO to be $77/ MWh (in 2015$).
* https://www.brucepower.com/who-we-are/delivering-transparenc...
As is OPG (Pickering, Darlington):
> From the earliest days of each project, OPG is required by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to have a Financial Guarantee in place to ensure it can cover the costs of the eventual decommissioning of its nuclear facilities.
* https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/nuclear/decom...
Federally, the generation companies are also responsible for handling waste:
> The Act required Canadian electricity generating companies which produce used nuclear fuel to establish a waste management organization to provide recommendations to the Government of Canada on the long-term management of used nuclear fuel. The legislation also required the waste owners to establish segregated trust funds to finance the long-term management of the used fuel. The Act further authorized the Government of Canada to decide on the approach. The government's choice will then be implemented by the NWMO, subject to all of the necessary regulatory approvals.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Management_Organ...
Do you have references that say otherwise?
You have not provided any, and have changed the subject. Do you retract your claim?
Or are you sticking with your claim and moving the goalposts as well?