What the cost of nuclear energy?

Answer 1

That's not easy to calculate. The price of electricity generated by nuclear energy costs exactly as much as from any other source because distributors don't charge customers as a function of the source of the energy, just what the going rate is. How much you pay for electricity depends a lot on where you live and can vary significantly. I believe my electricity bill is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 cents a kilowatt-hour. The main cost in producing nuclear power comes from building the power plant in the first place. Building a plant is a multi-billion dollar undertaking. Once built, running and maintaining the plant, and the cost of uranium fuel is the other main cost. That said, there are other "costs" to using nuclear energy that aren't easy to calculate. For instance, there is the problem of nuclear waste storage. Nobody has a 100% reliable way to deal with this problem, and even if there was a method, nobody has actually paid one dollar for that cost yet. And that cost will have to be paid eventually. The waste is building up and building up in temporary storage units, and it can't stay there forever. There are other costs, or more exactly risks, such as the dangers of accidents (not very likely in fact), and the danger of dangerous nuclear materials getting into the hands of our enemies. These don't have any cost, unless they actually happen, in which case the cost could be extremely high.

Another cost that has to be faced after the end of the plant's life is dismantling the plant as far as possible and then making safe the remaining parts, chiefly the reactor vessel and its core components, which will always be unsafe to work on.

On the other hand, these costs are balanced by the cost of continuing to produce our electricity by burning coal, which emits massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. If the worst fears about global warming come true, the cost of NOT using nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of energy could huge! But nobody can tell for sure. See link below for a review of plant costs for projected new plants

Answer 2

The cost of nuclear energy can vary depending on factors such as construction, maintenance, decommissioning, and waste management. Generally, nuclear energy is considered to have high upfront costs for building nuclear power plants, but low operational costs once operational. However, the cost competitiveness of nuclear energy compared to other forms of energy like renewables is subject to debate.