Costs of Nuclear Power Stations

In a new report, the Britain Remade lobby group pushes nuclear strongly, as

part of its ecomodernist growth-based future. It models different nuclear
build costs and renewable price scenarios to assess long-term impacts on
household energy bills. But although it accepts that ‘renewables may have
seen large price-falls over the last 15 years’ it says that ‘at high
penetrations costs linked to managing intermittency are high: Britain has
added 40 GW since 2010 and 120 GW is forecast by 2030, yet balancing,
curtailment, backup, and overbuild still add cost and leave gaps that
require firm power’. It is also not very happy about the local
environmental impact of renewables, given their high land use compared with
nuclear plants. Well yes, but the land on which renewable techs sit is not
all lost to other uses and offshore wind farms use no land. And the nuclear
fuel cycle (from uranium mining through to eventual waste disposal) also
involves land use. The new report does admit that Britain is the most
expensive place to build nuclear capacity. It notes that ‘Hinkley Point C
(HPC) is estimated to cost £46 billion, or £14,100 per kW: when finished,
it will be the most expensive nuclear power station ever built.
British-built plants cost far more per kW than peers: our per-kW costs are
about six times South Korea’s, and France and Finland deliver the same EPR
design for less per kW (27% and 53% respectively). Britain has gone
backwards on cost: Sizewell B in 1995 cost £6,200 per kW, less than half
Sizewell C’s budgeted cost.’

Renew Extra 27th Sept 2025

https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2025/09/britain-remade-but-mostly-with-nuclear.html