Question

Research the present cost of fuel for nuclear fission power plants (in $ per MWhe) and compare with the cost of coal and natural gas for conventional fossil fuel power plants. What are the implications for expanding utilization of nuclear power?

 

 

Answer 1

The current fuel cost is

fuel cost = 0.39 $/kWh

 

Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.

 

Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs, though capital costs are greater than those for coal-fired plants and much greater than those for gas-fired plants.

 

System costs for nuclear power (as well as coal and gas-fired generation) are very much lower than for intermittent renewables.

 

Providing incentives for long-term, high-capital investment in deregulated markets driven by short-term price signals presents a challenge in securing a diversified and reliable electricity supply system.

 

In assessing the economics of nuclear power, decommissioning and waste disposal costs are fully taken into account.

 

Nuclear power plant construction is typical of large infrastructure projects around the world, whose costs and delivery challenges tend to be under-estimated.

Nuclear power plants are expensive to build but relatively cheap to run. In many places, nuclear energy is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of electricity generation. Waste disposal and decommissioning costs are usually fully included in the operating costs. If the social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels are also taken into account, the competitiveness of nuclear power is improved. Assessing the relative costs of new generating plants utilizing different technologies is a complex matter and the results depend crucially on location. Coal is, and will probably remain, economically attractive in countries such as China, the USA and Australia, as long as carbon emissions are cost-free. Gas is also competitive for base-load power in many places, particularly using combined-cycle plants.

 

Front end fuel cycle costs of 1 kg of uranium fuel. At 45,000 MWh burn-up this gives 360,000 kWh electrical per kg, hence fuel cost = 0.39 $/kWh.

 

The world will need significantly increased energy supply in the future, especially cleanly-generated electricity.

 

Electricity demand is increasing about twice as fast as overall energy use and is likely to rise by more than half to 2040.

 

Nuclear power provides about 10% of the world's electricity, and 18% of electricity in OECD countries.

 

Almost all reports on future energy supply from major organizations suggest an increasing role for nuclear power as an environmentally benign way of producing reliable electricity on a large scale.

 

Growth in the world's population and economy, coupled with rapid urbanization, will result in a substantial increase in energy demand over the coming years. The United Nations (UN) estimates that the world's population will grow from 7.6 billion in 2017 to 9.7 billion by 2050. The challenge of meeting rapidly growing energy demand, whilst reducing harmful emissions of greenhouse gases, is considerable.

 

In 2019 global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose to 33.3 Gt, the highest on record, and about 45% above the total in 2000 (23.2 Gt). In 2020, due to the response to the coronavirus pandemic, primary energy demand dropped by nearly 4%, and CO2 emissions fell by 5.8%.

 

Electricity demand growth has outpaced growth in final energy demand for many years. Increased electrification of end-uses – such as transport, space cooling, large appliances, ICT, and others – are key contributors to rising electricity demand. The number of people without access to electricity has fallen substantially, and is now below one billion. However, despite significant progress, over 11% of the world's population still lacks access, mostly in rural areas.

 

Aside from the challenges of meeting increasing demand and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cleaner air is a vital need. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is the world's largest environmental risk. WHO estimates that about seven million people die prematurely as a result of air pollution. Much of the fine particulate matter in polluted areas arises from industrial sources such as power generation or from indoor air pollution which could be averted by electricity use.

 

Studies have repeatedly shown that nuclear energy is a low-emitting source of electricity production in general. It is also specifically low-carbon; emitting among the lowest amount of carbon dioxide equivalent per unit of energy produced when considering total life-cycle emissions. It is the second largest source of low-carbon electricity production globally (after hydropower), and provided about 30% of all low-carbon electricity generated in 2018. Almost all reports on future energy supply from major organizations suggest an expanded role for nuclear power is required, alongside growth in other forms of low-carbon power generation, to create a sustainable future energy system.

 

In June 2019 the OECD’s International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report, Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System, which concluded that a failure to invest in existing and new nuclear plants in advanced economies would make global efforts to transition to a cleaner energy system drastically harder and more costly.

The current fuel cost is

fuel cost = 0.39 $/kWh

 

Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.