| json_metadata | "{"app":"Musing","appTags":["energy"],"appCategory":"energy","appTitle":"What energy is cheaper to produce, nuclear or wind?","appBody":"<p><br></p>\n<p><img src=\"https://www.switchmybusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Business-energy-comparison-solar-and-wind-turbine-in-front-of-cooling-towers.gif\" /></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>I LOVE SOLAR ENERGY</strong></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Coinciding with the nuclear accident of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the electrical engineering department of the Polytechnic University of Valencia published an article on the comparison of costs between renewable and nuclear. Which has been updated to date, since in what refers to the cost of solar energy and wind has been a significant decline in them, which is worth reviewing. An extract of it is left next.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://admin.masivaecologica.com/SVsitefiles/masecom/contenido/med/16e286_Planta-nuclear-Fukushima.jpg\" /></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>Nuclear power costs</strong></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>A current nuclear power plant has a construction cost of 4,000 million euros for each installed gigawatt of power. It works 24 hours a day, although every year it must make a technical stop to check the equipment and at some moments the production level is lowered and it does not have a yield of one hundred percent of its nominal power.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>The data published by Red Eléctrica Española in 2011 indicates that the installed nuclear power in Spain is 7,777 MW and the production in 2011 was 57,731 GWh, that is, the number of effective hours of work of Spanish nuclear power plants was 7,423 hours / year.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Using this data we can obtain the average production of a 1 GW plant (multiplying 1GW by the 7,423 hours / year), which would be 7,423 Gigawatt hours per year, this being the total energy transferred to the grid and that we consume.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>Comparative calculations with wind</strong></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>With a simple calculation exercise we can know how much energy would be produced in that same year using the 4,000 million euros that the nuclear power plant costs if we used them to create plants with other types of technologies and, above all, with renewable energy, of which It is usually said that they are too expensive and not profitable.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Wind power currently has a cost of 600 million euros for each installed gigawatt of power. With the 4,000 million euros of the nuclear power plant that we mentioned earlier, 6,666 Gigawatts of wind power can be installed, that is, the equivalent of more than six nuclear power plants.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Wind equipment is usually installed in areas of no less than 2,000 effective hours of work each year. This value depends on the geographical area in which they are placed and the wind levels that each zone has.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>With 2,000 hours of operation per year, 6,666 GW produce 13,333 Gigawatt hours per year, that is, they produce more electricity than the nuclear power plant that has cost the same amount of money.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Percentage of wind energy in a low average wind zone produces 179.62% more electrical energy than the nuclear power plant built with the same amount of money. With the same investment, more energy is produced.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>Comparative calculations with photovoltaic</strong></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>The cost of photovoltaics is currently 1,200 million euros for each gigawatt of installed power. With the 4,000 million euros of cost of the nuclear power plant we can build a photovoltaic power plant of 3,333 Gigawatts of power.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>In an area like Alicante, we would have the equivalent of 1,600 effective hours (minus the losses that occur in the plant) of annual production, so that in the first year we would produce 5,333 Gigawatt hours, that is, 71.84% of what produces a nuclear power plant of the same cost.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>This production would be greater, evidently, in areas such as Murcia or a good part of Andalusia, which have better levels of solar radiation. It would also be higher in sun tracking systems that have a much higher number of effective hours of work.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>As observed, photovoltaic solar energy is nowadays more expensive than nuclear energy, although costs have decreased a lot in recent years and the trend continues to be downward, with a decrease of 10% annually in recent years.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>The maintenance cost is very low and the cost of fuel is zero, so the conditions of competitiveness of the photovoltaic are excellent as of 2012. Taking into account that they produce almost 72% of a nuclear and do not require fuel costs every year, they do not produce waste that has to be managed over thousands of years, the cost of producing electricity with photovoltaic solar energy is lower than that of producing with a nuclear power plant.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pkgv4tc2x","appParentAuthor":"muzaidi","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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