There are expenses not shown. Believe when all the costs itemized are added, nuclear energy will prove to be the most expensive.

Not really.

Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 13 are all included in the O&M and fuel costs.

There is nothing unique about nuclear power when it comes to item 13 (upgrades), by the way. All forms of electricity production have a risk of tightening environmental regulations. Although many old coal plants were grandfathered out of having to meet modern pollution standards, it is highly doubtful that a coal plant built today would ever be exempted from future regulations in any scenario short of Congress abolishing the EPA.

Item 5 does not even make sense. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 has required that the generators of nuclear power pay a fee of 0.001 USD for every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. This money does not go to FEMA; rather, it goes to a special fund that is to be used for disposing of the so-called “waste.”

Item 7 is also covered by “waste fund” fees that is explicitly included in the fuel costs given above for nuclear.

Item 9 is part of the capital costs for a plant. There’s nothing hidden about that.

The remaining items, numbered 10, 11, and 12, are covered by the fees paid by the licensee to the NRC. Since the late-eighties, federal law has required the NRC to recover about 90% of its annual budget from fees imposed on the entities that it regulates (i.e., the owners of the power plants). No other federal regulatory body has this mandate. These fees are included in the costs of the plant.

The fees paid to license the facility for construction and operation are absorbed into the capital costs of the plant, but the licensing cost of several million dollars for a plant that costs several billion dollars is truly a drop in the bucket. It’s almost not worth mentioning. The remaining NRC fees are absorbed into the O&M costs.

1. Nuclear plants require many more and far more highly trained personnel than other alternatives at higher salaries
2. Security is far more demanding and expensive. NRC also requires periodic live security exercises.
3 Plant insurance charges far exceed all other type energy sources
4 Personnel training costs in a nuclear plant are more extensive and demanding
5 FEMA charges a waste fuel depletion fee
6 Spare parts are more expensive, and usually one backup is insufficient.
7 waste fuel dry storage casks are expensive.
8 Cost of a nuclear plant calls for considerably higher annual depreciation.
9 redundancy of a backup duplicate control room adds cost
10 required NRC communications control center with local communities cost money
11 required NRC evacuation exercises further add to the costs
12 Contribution for NRC support.
13 costly upgrades demanded by NRC as weaknesses in present plant designs are exposed

There are probably other hidden costs not reflected in this evaluation. Most of these requirements do not exist for the other alternative energies.
Let’s get these cost in this evaluation and we can get a more truthful picture.

If you recall, there are three cost components to nuclear energy generation: construction costs, operating costs, and decommissioning costs. Construction costs represent the bulk of the cost figure (somewhere between $0.025 to $0.065 per kWh). Then you add operating costs and decommissioning costs, which combined are less than $0.02, and there is your $0.04 to $0.12 per kWh.

Right now I’m just laying the groundwork on this category. I will be bringing this all back together in a cost per kWh post in the next couple of weeks – stay tuned and thanks for the great questions!

This is a good summary article. It would be great to see a similar break down of coal and natural gas plants, wind and solar so that the comparison could be clear. If the operating costs are only 1.8 cents a kwh why does the electricty cost nearly 4 to 12 cents a kwh? This would be a helpful post.

Thanks for a great read!