On February 16, 2010, President Obama made a historic announcement at a meeting of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26 in Lanham, Md. At the meeting, President Obama announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees from the Department of Energy for Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power to build two new nuclear reactors at the Alvin W Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Burke County, Georgia. This marks the first ever loan guarantee for a new nuclear power plant in the United States and is part of the $54 billion set aside by the federal government for such projects.
AP1000 Reactors
The new unts will be 1,100 Megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. The AP1000 is known as a Generation III+ reactor that draws on lessons learned from 50 years of commercial nuclear power plant operation in the US and other countries. The combined 2,200 MW of capacity will safely and reliably provide enough electricity for 1.1 million homes in Georgia.
Vogtle is already home to two existing Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) that have produced 2,400 MW since the 1980s. Upon completion of the two new units in 2016 and 2017, the combined Vogtle site will produce 4,600 MW, enough to power 2.3 million Georgian homes. With zero carbon emissions, this will eliminate 16 million tons of CO2 emissions per year; the equivalent of taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
Construction Cost and Jobs
The total project is expected to cost $14 billion (including finance costs). Southern Company has previously stated that it only intends to utilize $3.4 billion of the loan guarantee with the rest of the cost shared with several other utilities including Oglethorpe Power Corporation, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and Dalton Utilities. Construction of the two reactors is expected to create 3,500 temporary construction jobs and also 800 permanent operating jobs. In addition, nuclear plants are known to stir up economic activity anywhere one is built and the area can also expect thousands of “satellite” jobs like restaurants, hotels, and other services.
Licensing Obstacles
There are still a few hurdles remaining in completing the project. First and foremost, the NRC must approve the design of the AP1000 which has already run into several hurdles with the commission. Also required is a Combined Operating and Construction License (COL) which has not been issued in the US since the 1970s. Once licensed by the government, all eyes will be on the new project. Delays and cost overruns in reactor construction decades ago hurt the industry and this project must succeed if others are going to be built.
As expected, antinuclear activists are flocking to the area to begin a campaign aimed at stopping the construction of the two plants. However, with both political parties and 62% of Americans now in favor of nuclear energy, it would appear that their efforts are in vain and the two AP1000 reactors will be the first of many new builds in the US Nuclear Renaissance.
Image Credit
AP1000 Reactor image courtesy of Westinghouse
8 Comments
This makes the cost of these reactors, (assuming I got all the zeros in the right place) about $6.36 per watt. This is more expensive than the costing of the Nuscale reactors at about $4.5 per watt. Currently Solar PV is running around $4.24 a watt (http://www.solarbuzz.com/Moduleprices.htm). Of course the capacity factor is less than 50% but there is a real effort to lower the cost of these modules.
It seems to me that with a small nuclear plant costing about the same per watt as a solar panel but with a much much higher capacity factor that utilities will be very eager to sign up Mpower, Nuscale and Hyperion.
David,
Your numbers look good. A couple of things to add to it:
First, a solar panel actually gets less than 30% CF. If you look at the Capacity Factor post, you’ll notice that renewables are at 40% but that number is skewed by biomass which is considerably higher than wind or solar.
Second, lifespan is important. A nuclear plant will last for 40, 60, or even 80 years. Some of the modular reactors may even last to 100. A solar panel will get you 15-20 years.
So a better statistic might be [($/kWHr) * Capacity Factor * Lifespan] where nuclear is the only source that beats coal even when counting decommissioning and waste costs, which coal doesn’t pay.
A standard solar PV should give more than a century of power, although at slowly decreasing generation.
The standard guarantee is a minimum of 80% nameplate after 20 years (i.e. expect a bit more than the guarantee). 40% nameplate after 100 years is a reasonable guess.
Fuel cost is zero, operating cost very close to zero, maintenance is mainly washing off bird droppings. The one BIG durability issue is the inverter.
Solar PV can be a useful and somewhat economic supplement as part of the grid power. But only a supplement.
Cost per kWh of actual energy produced is the only way to compare different types of energy. This methodology takes into account capacity factor and useful life of the plant. Here are my rough calculations using $14 billion as the construction cost for both units combined:
2,200 MW reactors @ 95% capacity over 40 year useful life will produce 732,336,000,000 kWh of electricity
$14 billion divided by the total kWh of electricity = $0.019 (just under 2 cents) per kWh. Add the standard $0.0186 per kWh for operating costs and $0.0015 for decommissioning results in a total cost of $0.0391 (just under 4 cents) per kWh. That is cheap, reliable, safe energy. Solar can’t come close to touching that cost per kWh figure – most PV systems are closer to $0.16 per kWh, which is four times as expensive.
Nice Jay. Do you know if the $0.16 per kWh for solar takes into account energy storage or backup systems?
No, it does not include energy storage or backup systems. So you are right to infer that the total cost of solar is actually higher than $0.16 per kWh.
Nice figures but please note that PV is still immature. Those $0,16 per KWh were more than $0,30 per KWh a couple of years ago and current estimates show dramatic room for improvement. Besides, Solar PV might not be a good metric as, especially if you consider residential applications, Solar PV “cost” should be compared with “standard electricity” price. As a residential user having some panels on my roof, the real metric is the price… not the cost. And, let’s face it, Solar PV does only make sense at residential/commercial level where, from my perspective, it should be viewed as energy efficiency rather than as energy generation.
Sorry, but when comparing cost of renewables- and nuclear-generated power, please keep in mind that you compare cost of power with cost of s**t-power, i.e. the intermittent electricity a.k.a. Soviet-style solution of supply & demand. Greens even suggested that we must get accustomed to use electricity only when there is any – storming the switches as in Soviet era people stormed the shops when grape had it that shoes or sugar or oil hit the empty shelves. Well, it was probably “sustainable economy” (for the time being), good for planet (and world revolution) but not so good for the next Ivan, who finally voted it out.
Second, renewables are by no means cheap once the capital input is over. Contrary to popular belief, their operative cost is higher even to that of coal-fired plants, mostly because of their insanely labor-intensive maintenance. It amounts to about one job per 100 kW of constant power, so PV plant equal to Vogtle 1-4 would have some 50 000 people on its pay list to collect the dropping from 200 km2 (yes, 50 000 of acres) of pristine solar pannels. Nice way to spend your life – as a crap-engineer, cleaning droppings in a s**t-power plant!
It could be calculated in no time that producing of all US electricity this way would employ about 5% of total American workforce, or at least twice as much if all energy is to be derived from renewables.
This decentralized, back-to-basic, busy-anthill green economy, has all the beauty and vision of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward – with Tiananmen as not such far-off possibility.
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