Great article. Even more detail than ThorCon's website. We don't have to guess at the cost less than $1500 / kW. From the ThorCon website: "The shipyard estimate supports our estimates that ThorCon power plants can be mass produced by shipyards at costs of $800/kW to $1000/kW." This is a bit lower than the $1200 / kW on their spec sheet, but I assume the former is ThorCon's cost, and the latter is what they would like a power company to pay. I wish all companies would be this transparent. The silly debate over cost seems now to be the main sticking point for anti-nukers. I used to say "If a vendor offers a product you want at a price you like, don't argue, place an order." Now, I have to provide links to ThorCon's page on economics, and they still argue. I say "Show me where is the error in their estimate.", and that ends the discussion, for a week or two until it is forgotten, then the same anti-nuker is back with the same argument. FaceBook forums are a game of whack-a-mole.
As editor at Citizendium, I also want to avoid pushing any one design, but ThorCon is the only company that has provided details on their design, enough to write a good article answering all the questions in our parent article Nuclear Power Reconsidered. ThorCon is actually not my personal favorite, but I can't get details on the one I think will win the prize.
The Korean quote depends critically on the assumption that nuclear is regulated n the same manner as ships and coal plants. This is a false assumption just about every where, which is strange since coal plants are far more harmful. We need to treat radiation as another pollutant, much like coal plant pollution. In fact at low dose rates, coal plant pollution is more harmful. The reason is radiation is part of our natural environment, so nature has endowed us with systems for repairing radiation damage. We don't have the same defenses for some of the stuff in coal plant pollution.
We can't include the cost of regulation in our Citizendium articles, because it can be anything from zero to infinity, and there is no one number we can say is better than another. What I have done is define "true cost" as what it would be in a free market with plenty of competition and no government subsidies, taxes, tariffs, fees, or hidden subsides like mandates. I have an ongoing debate with a guy from Australia claiming that the true cost of rooftop solar is 1/3 of what I just paid for my business in Arizona. He dodges the questions when I try to pin him down.
For nuclear, your "true cost" is "false cost" unless we fix the regulatory mess. I prefer the terms should-cost and did-cost. Upcoming piece on how different they can be.
This is the should cost- very relevant for the here and now. For the future I am more interested in the “could” cost. How low can we go? If we can get to 0.5 ¢/kWh then we open up so many new avenues for cost effective energy that would really give us flying cars and all of the awesome future things sci-fi promised us.
I like the way you think. 0.5 cents may be a reach, but in a perfect world, 1.0 cents may not. If you look at a ThorCon (under Underwriter Certification) most of the money is in he trubine hall. Let's face it the Rankine cycle is klutzy. An Allam cycle could make most of the turbine hall go away, and you have a stream of pure CO2 to combine with yr H2. But none of this happens without drastic changes in regulation.
The Allam and closed Brayton designs are great- we are at the infancy of those technologies, but supercritical CO2 is a dream working fluid compared to water. The latent heat rejection is an absolute efficiency killer...
Fantastic piece. Yet Germany has closed its nukes while literally buldozing towns to mine more coal.
Great article. Even more detail than ThorCon's website. We don't have to guess at the cost less than $1500 / kW. From the ThorCon website: "The shipyard estimate supports our estimates that ThorCon power plants can be mass produced by shipyards at costs of $800/kW to $1000/kW." This is a bit lower than the $1200 / kW on their spec sheet, but I assume the former is ThorCon's cost, and the latter is what they would like a power company to pay. I wish all companies would be this transparent. The silly debate over cost seems now to be the main sticking point for anti-nukers. I used to say "If a vendor offers a product you want at a price you like, don't argue, place an order." Now, I have to provide links to ThorCon's page on economics, and they still argue. I say "Show me where is the error in their estimate.", and that ends the discussion, for a week or two until it is forgotten, then the same anti-nuker is back with the same argument. FaceBook forums are a game of whack-a-mole.
As editor at Citizendium, I also want to avoid pushing any one design, but ThorCon is the only company that has provided details on their design, enough to write a good article answering all the questions in our parent article Nuclear Power Reconsidered. ThorCon is actually not my personal favorite, but I can't get details on the one I think will win the prize.
David,
The Korean quote depends critically on the assumption that nuclear is regulated n the same manner as ships and coal plants. This is a false assumption just about every where, which is strange since coal plants are far more harmful. We need to treat radiation as another pollutant, much like coal plant pollution. In fact at low dose rates, coal plant pollution is more harmful. The reason is radiation is part of our natural environment, so nature has endowed us with systems for repairing radiation damage. We don't have the same defenses for some of the stuff in coal plant pollution.
We can't include the cost of regulation in our Citizendium articles, because it can be anything from zero to infinity, and there is no one number we can say is better than another. What I have done is define "true cost" as what it would be in a free market with plenty of competition and no government subsidies, taxes, tariffs, fees, or hidden subsides like mandates. I have an ongoing debate with a guy from Australia claiming that the true cost of rooftop solar is 1/3 of what I just paid for my business in Arizona. He dodges the questions when I try to pin him down.
https://citizendium.org/wiki/Cost_of_nuclear_power
What would be the true cost of building a 500 MWt Molten Salt reactor, hauling it out to the desert and firing it up?
For nuclear, your "true cost" is "false cost" unless we fix the regulatory mess. I prefer the terms should-cost and did-cost. Upcoming piece on how different they can be.
This is the should cost- very relevant for the here and now. For the future I am more interested in the “could” cost. How low can we go? If we can get to 0.5 ¢/kWh then we open up so many new avenues for cost effective energy that would really give us flying cars and all of the awesome future things sci-fi promised us.
I like the way you think. 0.5 cents may be a reach, but in a perfect world, 1.0 cents may not. If you look at a ThorCon (under Underwriter Certification) most of the money is in he trubine hall. Let's face it the Rankine cycle is klutzy. An Allam cycle could make most of the turbine hall go away, and you have a stream of pure CO2 to combine with yr H2. But none of this happens without drastic changes in regulation.
How did you make the cents symbol?
On the iPhone if you hold down the $ key, it gives options for ¢,£,€,¥, etc. You can get a whole bunch of special characters with the different keys.
The Allam and closed Brayton designs are great- we are at the infancy of those technologies, but supercritical CO2 is a dream working fluid compared to water. The latent heat rejection is an absolute efficiency killer...