[thackney]

Nuclear has and will provide a lot of good features, but cheaper is not going to be one of them.

Cost and Performance Characteristics of New Central Station Electricity Generating Technologies
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/pdf/electricity.pdf#page=3

[decimon]

Back in the 1950s, nuclear power was sold to us with grossly exaggerated claims of virtually free electrical power. And it’s worth recalling that the nuclear power we got back then was pretty much a government project.

[chimera]

Do those figures, especially for coal, reflect the actual costs that are currently not internalized? I know in my area the local power company just reached a humongous settlement with the EPA for pollution control equipment, tens of billions of dollars. That’s going to drive the cost of coal-fired electricity way up, probably in excess of nuclear-generated power on a per kwhr basis. Unless there is some uniform way of internalizing costs that currently are not, we may be looking at apples and oranges. It bears remembering that nuclear is one of the few industries that fully plans for costs, from initial construction to fuel extraction and fabrication to waste disposal and retirement of facilities. All of that is reflected in the cost. I’m not sure that’s the case for other energy sources, and if it isn’t, that may change in the future.

[WOSG]

Sorry, that chart is based on highly dubious cost estimates, not real data. Even today gas is more expensive than coal, and wind is far more expensive than either that and nuclear. These cost estimates are biased probably due to overnight costs wrt capital. The real cost order is coal (cheapest) < Nuclear < gasfired CC < Wind.

Here is yet another chart from EIA. Can't vouch for it exactly, but it is closer to what industry numbers suggest. I am still suspicious that it is understating gas combined cycle cost, mainly because these are based on estimates for NG prices, and those estimates have been less than actual (ie who would have prediced $80/barrel oil 5 years ago?) As for wind, the rating capacity versus actual production is not near 100% like it can be with nuclear and coal baseline, so depdning on assumptions of generation/capacity it may be understating the cost there as well.