Interactive Tool lifts Veil on the Cost of Nuclear Energy

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 08/25/15

Jake Smith reports that despite the ever-changing landscape of energy economics, subject to the influence of new technologies and geopolitics, a new tool promises to base discussions about the cost of nuclear energy on hard evidence rather than speculation. This assumes that there are no built-in basises in the database. Over the last two years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has developed the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Cost Calculator, an online interface that provides a summary look at the economic costs of nuclear power. Built with significant funding from the MacArthur Fdn, and in collaboration with Prof. Robert Rosner and a team of researchers, the calculator provides a simple gateway into the physics-laden universe of nuclear economics. A user can select positions of more than 60 moving scales to tweak the numerical inputs like uranium price or reactor construction time, and then watch the expected price shift. Spending time with the interface gives insight into costs in the field of nuclear energy, where building a new reactor can have a greater impact on energy cost than a spike in the price of uranium, the latter of which has been known for 30 years. The calculator also projects the costs of recycling versus disposing of spent nuclear fuel - a subject debated among energy experts - and reveals that, when all costs are added in, recycling fuel results in consumers paying more per kilowatt hour, but compared to what? The model is transparent. You push a button, and out comes the answer, said Rosner, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Physics at the Univ. Chicago, and affiliated with the Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. The full-recycling process requires special reactors that can be turned into what Rosner calls plutonium factories with slight modifications to the design, as used by the Chernobyl reactors many years ago. We check for bias. Follow the story on the model use. A model for renewables should also be built.