this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Solar energy now overlaps in cost with nuclear fuel alone for "cheap" modular reactors (energy-utilities.com)
submitted 1 year ago by schroedingershat@lemmy.world to c/energy@slrpnk.net
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Uranium is $128.30/kg

After enrichment, conversion and fabrication that's $3400/kg for 4.95% fuel.

At 36-45MWd/kg and a net thermal efficiency of 25% or $12.5/MWh up front.

With a 90 month lead time (72 month fuel cycle and 18 months inventory) at 3% this is $16.2/MWh

Which some solar projects are now matching

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[–] schroedingershat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is just the marginal cost of the front end of the cycle ignoring the back end and all other fixed or marginal costs.

Ie. If you already have bought an SMR in a high-solar-resource region, is it cheaper to buy fuel to run it during the day or to buy solar panels instead and turn it off. The answer being it's a wash right now, but uranium is going up for the moment and solar is going down for now.