Comment by rootusrootus
21 hours ago
Price probably played a pretty big role, too. The up front cost of a new nuclear plant is eye watering. Hard to compete against solar & battery these days which can be spun up in months and cost comparatively pennies.
That's also true, partially driven by a lot of hurdles and time spent fighting for approval due to the anti-nuclear push due to the things I mentioned, but it is also just expensive to build in the US because our labor and land is pretty expensive too.
Is there a study that pinpoints which nuclear regulations are unnecessary and how much they add to the LCoE of a nuke plant?
I'm thinking more of the cycles of community approval that can drag on and delay the project rather than individual ongoing regulations.
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I mean concrete is also just really expensive. A lot of the cost is labor, yes, but still.
And the price was escalating even before TMI and Chernobyl.