Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 2. Comparison of Electricity Generating Costs Using Nuclear,
Coal, and Natural Gas Energy Sources
Cents per kilowatt-hour
Energy source
25-year period
40-year period
Nuclear (base case)
7.0
6.7
Nuclear (best case)
4.7
4.4
Coal
4.4
4.2
Natural gas
4.9
5.1
Source: MIT.
Note: Costs were calculated using 2002 dollars and an 85 percent capacity factor using
merchant plant financing, reflecting a risk premium for nuclear energy. The best case
for nuclear energy assumes a 25-percent reduction in construction costs and a 12-
month reduction in construction time. The natural gas case assumes combined cycle
turbine technology and a price that starts at $4.50/million Btu and rises at a 2.5
percent rate over 40 years. Although natural gas prices were lower in 2002 than today,
construction and other costs have risen, resulting in a good measure of relative costs,
according to one of the MIT authors.
However, the MIT study found that if a tax on carbon emissions were
introduced, nuclear energy could become much more competitive because
conventional coal and natural gas power plants would be subject to the tax while
nuclear reactors would not because they do not emit carbon dioxide during the
generation of electricity (see table 3). Coal-based IGCC plants could perform
better than the conventional coal-fired power plants in capturing and sequestering
carbon dioxide emissions, but these plants are considerably more expensive to
build and operate than conventional coal-fired plants. Part of DOE's R and D
efforts include reducing the cost of construction of coal-based IGCC plants.
The revival of the nuclear power industry is also challenged by uncertainty
about long-term disposal of commercial reactors' spent nuclear fuel. DOE reports
that about 55,000 tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel—enough to fill the area
of a football field about 10 feet deep—currently sits in interim storage at 72 sites
in 33 states, mostly at operating reactor sites. This spent fuel must be safely
disposed of to protect the public and the environment from harm because it will
remain highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. The Atomic Energy
Commission, DOE's predecessor, initially planned to recycle spent nuclear fuel to
reduce the amount of waste for disposal, but the 1970s recycling technology did
not address concerns that plutonium might be separated and diverted for use in
manufacturing nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982
determined that the spent fuel should be disposed of in a deep geologic repository;
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