A reality check on the cost of nuclear power for Australia

These are Plant Vogtle in the US (US$27.5bn, 2.2GW), Framanville France (€12.4bn+, 1.6 GW), Olkiluoto in Finland (around €10 bn+, 1.6 GW) and Hinckley Point in the UK (₤22 bn+, 3.2 GW).

There are two further plants whose power costs have been published, Akkuyu in Turkey US$127/MWh and Barakah in the Emirates US$110/MWh.

It should be emphasised that none of these costs are the full cost recovery. For example in the British case it is estimated that some $10 bn has been spent by others on upgrading the grid and backup power supplies. In Turkey the cost of the plant is just that, and doesn’t include civil works, grid connections, cooling water supply.

In the US plant Vogtle has benefited from some US$8bn of federal government loan guarantees and an unusual form of financing where customers have paid about 8% premium on their bills for 10-12 years before the plant is to be commissioned.

All of the plants get catastrophe insurance and some security from their government and most have inadequate bond structures for long term waste storage. They also rarely pay for cooling water. Many have preferential supply agreements which will require other cheaper sources of power to turn off to allow the nuclear plants to keep running.

However, even on the published information, nuclear power plants in democracies are running at about A$13m/MW.

In our case we do not have an experienced nuclear workforce, Australian construction costs are higher by 20-30% for large projects –  and there are 5,000 tradesmen on site at Plant Vogtle out of a workforce of 9,000 as nuclear power plants are very large projects.

We do not have the heavy fabrication facilities required, and these cost hundreds of millions to build  For example the Osborne Naval Shipyard design for 1/10th of the throughput of a nuclear fab shop cost $380m.  Even the inspectors would have to be imported.

So it is reasonable to suggest that new nuclear in Australia would cost at least A$16m per MW including subsidised construction finance, resulting in a first day of operation cost of a 2.2 GW plant of A$41 bn. Amortised over 50 years station life at a very low weighted average cost of capital at 5.5% – lower than plant Vogtle – that still works out at about $2.4 bn/yr.

Due to the variability of demand in Australia the plants would be unlikely to be able to achieve a capacity factor above about 80% – halfway between the US and France and higher than Korea.  So over a typical year a two unit 2.2 GW plant would be expected to generate about 15,500,000 MWh meaning the fixed costs per MWh would be $2.4bn/15.5m or $156/MWh.

The daily running costs of US nuclear plants average out at US$40/MWh.  This is lower than France and almost certainly lower than any new nuclear plant in Australia could achieve due to the much larger American skill base, higher utilisation and lower operating temperatures.  The best case for Australia would be A$60+ for maintenace and operation. Thus an Australian nuclear power station could be expected to deliver power at a cost of A$216/MWh.

Now if you use the cheaper Barrakah design at about US$5,300/MW and allow for 15 years of inflation at 1.5% to allow time for the project to come online, and a modest 10% Australian premium, power here could be produced at about A$10.4 bn per GW.

After a slightly lower capacity factor of 75%, about the same as Korea, and a realistic WACC of 6.5% the ammortisation amounts to $107/MWh with a similar A$60/MWh operating and maintenance cost and the total delivered cost of power is a mere A $167/MWh.

This figure aligns closely with the figure quoted by the CEO of the Barrakah plant some years ago at US$110/MWh

The costs of a renewable alternative

It should be noted that many of the arguments about relative costs are based on the figures used in the Finkel report. These are well out of date. Nuclear power has become even more expensive and actual renewable contracts in Australia are down 40-50% on the Finkel figures.

Thus if we dispersed 2 GW of wind $3.6 bn, 1.2 GW of tracking solar $1.8bn, 2 GW of rooftop solar $2.5 bn, 1 GW of waste/biomass/geothermal $2.5bn and 1 GW/15GWh of pumped hydro $1.8 bn and 1 GW/ 2 GWh of batteries $1.2bn across the NEM the total cost would be $13.5 bn.

Annual generation would be 17,500 GWh – more than the nuclear plant – and minimum available output would be 2.5 GW+.  Typical hot day peak demand at 5pm would be about 4GW.

About 30% of generation would go through storage at 85% efficiency, so net output would be around 16,500 GWh.  Some would be curtailed so we can assume a similar annual output to the nuclear plant.

However the operating costs average around $18 and the capital, even if amortised over 30 years are only $59/MWh for a total of $77 including backup.

In summary, for 1/3rd of the investment, in one third of the time, we can get renewable power and backup for 1/3rd of the cost of nuclear power……https://www.openforum.com.au/nuclear-cost-and-water-consumption-the-elephants-in-the-control-room/?fbclid=IwAR2M3NxMjfrDJNWTG9tatKSARHGUKWVcG_CE-bSW5wtnAbwhGnYxd1ElugU