An EESI ‘Fact Sheet’ says this:
The linked [underlined] National Library of Medicine document, dated 2012 Dec 13, states: “…In total, we estimate that the economic value of health impacts from fossil fuel electricity in the United States is $361.7-886.5 billion annually, representing 2.5-6.0% of the national GDP.
A ‘finger in the air’☝ puts it at, say, $600 billion per year on average at that point in time; then ad infinitum. In 2012, electricity generation from coal was 1500 TWh and natural gas (NG) was 675 TWh. Now, electricity generation from coal has fallen to 675 TWh and NG has risen to 1802 TWh.
Although absolute pollution levels from these two fossil fuels must have declined, population has increase from 314 million in 2012 to 334 million now and inflation makes $1.00 billion in 2012 worth $1.33 billion now.
It is more than reasonable to conclude: Pollution from burning coal and NG, in the generation of electricity today, costs $600 billion per year in today’s money! Oh💩
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Calculating the cost of a 100% nuclear power plant (NPP) grid to supply base load, diurnal & seasonal load following
From the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly table, 4,178 TWh of electricity were generated by utility scale facilities in 2023. Peak generation in July was at 572 GW and lowest generation occurred in February at 460 GW.
With a bit of standby capacity it’s reasonable to think 600 GW of NPP generation would be needed, with about 400 GW of ‘stand alone’ NPP generation providing just base load. That leaves the balance of 200 GW of NPP generation combined, GW for GW, with PEM electrolysers for diurnal load following. Note: Seasonal load following will be assumed to be accommodated by planned maintenance and refuelling outages of the combined fleets of individual grids.
Bearing in mind the USA’s current nuclear fleet operates at 93% capacity factor (CF), and much of it of Gen II design, applying the 93% CF to ‘new’ Gen III+ designs is quite justifiable.
That requires a total fleet size with an installed capacity of 650 GW of Gen III+ NPP.
430 GW of that capacity will meet base load demand.
The remaining 220 GW will be combined with PEM electrolysers for diurnal load following.
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The Gen III+ NPP of choice is Westinghouse’s AP1000 @ $4,550/kW of installed capacity (see below)
Page 6 “…This means the next AP1000 could cost as high as $6,800/kW and $4,500/kW for the following installed 10th unit, based on 2022 dollars…”
10 @ $6,800/kW + 640 @ $4,500/kW (adding a bit for inflation from 2022 $s) gives an overnight capital cost (OCC) rate of $4,550/kW for all 650 GW.
NB: Since the rated capacity of the AP1000 is 1,110 MWe, the total number of AP1000 units required is 585
The total investment required for all 585 AP1000s is $2,957.5 billion ($5.05 billion each). Bearing in mind the design life is 60 years, that represents an [ad infinitum] investment requirement of $49.3 billion/year. (A)
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The PEM electrolyser of choice is ITM Power’s NeptuneV @ $1,101/kW of installed capacity (See picture note regarding the 20 MW unit)
220 GW of PEM electrolysers are required for rapid (millisecond) load following response to changes in grid demand and, the OCC rate is $1,101/kW (see image).
However, a PEM electrolyser system lifetime is 30 years and, the ‘Replacement cost interval’ of 40,000 operating hours (4.566 years) carries a ‘Replacement cost’ of ‘11% of total installed capital cost’. That tots up to [almost] exactly 50%, taking the applicable OCC rate to $1,655/kW
The total investment required for all 220 GW is therefore $364.1 billion. That represents an [ad infinitum] investment requirement of $12.1 billion/year.
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$49.3 billion/year + $12.1 billion/year = A Total Investment Cost of
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$61.4 billion/year~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The USA should start today with Terminator policies to cease the burning of fossil fuels (FFS) in the generation of electricity with the use of currently available technologies:
