Earlier today I read a very interesting cost comparison between Offshore Wind vs Nuclear Energy for the Mid-Atlantic. The article, posted by Meredith Angwin on the Energy Collective website, includes a number of technical details. I’ve pasted the most interesting of them below. I found a number of the comments that followed the article just as interesting and would recommend you take a l
“With a project plan that envisages construction extending from 2016 – 2026, the developers intend to build out the offshore transmission backbone in five phases at a total expected cost of $6.311 billion. The capital cost of the IWTs (Industrial Wind Turbines) would be 7,000 MW x $4.2 million/MW = $24.53 Billion, for a total of $35.7 billion”
“For comparison: The capital cost of 7,000 MW of nuclear plants (7 standard 1,000 MW plants) would be about $28 billion and the energy production of would be 7,000 MW x 8,760 hr/yr x CF 0.90 = 55.20 TWh/yr; more than twice the production at much less capital cost. They could all be built in about 10 years, thereby reducing CO2 much sooner than the IWTs which would take 20 years“
“Based on the above, it appears the energy cost of the IWTs will be at least 20 c/kWh and of the nuclear plants about 10 c/kWh, per EIA/US-DOE.”
For me, the points that stick out are: more than twice the production at much less capital cost. Oh and a ten year build time for nuclear vs twenty for Wind.
The Wind Energy industry has received significant Media support over the years, while Nuclear Energy has received the direct opposite. In both cases the hard facts behind the two energy sources have rarely come to light. It’s important that articles like Meredith Angwin’s get the truth out there about the realities of renewable energy sources. We need to reduce worldwide emissions as fast as we can. There are no ‘cheap’ options for achieving this, however, in my opinion Nuclear energy remains to best way to reach the goal at a financial cost that the world’s economies can bear.
Dev Randhawa
