UPDATE ON THE COST OF NUCLEAR POWER
Name
NFC-108.pdf
Description
NFC-108.pdf
Size
656.46 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f52977b901ed59834368519807d57035
Author(s)
Du, Yangbo
Parsons, John E.
Date Issued
May 2009
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems. Nuclear Fuel Cycle Program
Series/Report no.
MIT-NFC;TR-108
Abstract
We update the cost of nuclear power as calculated in the MIT (2003) Future of
Nuclear Power study. Our main focus is on the changing cost of construction of new
plants. The MIT (2003) study provided useful data on the cost of then recent builds in
Japan and the Republic of Korea. We provide similar data on later builds in Japan and the
Republic of Korea as well as a careful analysis of the forecasted costs on some recently
proposed plants in the US. Using the updated cost of construction, we calculate a
levelized cost of electricity from nuclear power. We also update the cost of electricity
from coal- and gas-fired power plants and compare the levelized costs of nuclear, coal
and gas. The results show that the cost of constructing a nuclear plant has approximately
doubled. The cost of constructing coal-fired plants has also increased, although perhaps
just as importantly, the cost of the coal itself has spiked dramatically, too. Capital costs
are a much smaller fraction of the cost of electricity from gas, so it is the recent spike in
the price of natural gas that has contributed to the increased cost of electricity. These
results document changing prices leading up to the current economic and financial crisis,
and do not incorporate how this crisis may be currently affecting prices.
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