Estimated Costs: Combined Cycle vs. Nuclear Plants

Power System	Capital Cost $/kW	Interest + Depreciation ¢/kWhe1	Nat. gas price $/million Btu2	Fuel Cost ¢/kWhe	Non-fuel O&M ¢/kWhe3	Total cost ¢/kWhe	Tot. CO2 reduction after 30 yrs kg C4	Carbon reduction ratio, Gas/Nuc.
Combined Cycle (CC)5
Case 1 CC	500	0.76	150	1.02	0.48	2.26	9.97 x 1010	1.37 (Case 1)
Case 2 CC	500	0.76	250	1.71	0.48	2.95	1.02 x 1011	1.40 (Case 2)
Case 3 CC	500	0.76	400	2.73	0.48	3.97	1.09 x 1011	1.50 (Case 3)
Nuclear6
Case 1 Nuc	1500	2.28	-	0.6	1.7	4.58	7.29 x 1010	-
Case 2 Nuc	2500	3.81	-	0.6	1.7	6.11	7.29 x 1010	-
Case 3 Nuc7	4000	6.09	-	0.7	2.0	8.79	7.29 x 1010	-
Based on the following sources: For nuclear plant costs (cases 2 and 3): Steven M. Cohn, Too Cheap to Meter: An Economic and Philosophical Analysis of the Nuclear Dream, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1997, pp. 106 and 155; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Information Digest 1997 Washington DC, 1997, Tables 6 and 7. For gas costs: the US Energy Information Administration web page. For combined-cycle power plant costs: D.M. Todd and H. Stoll, "Integrated Gasification Combined-cycle -- The Preferred Power Technology for a Variety of Applications," GE Power Systems, Schenectady, Paper presented at the Power-Gen Europe 97 Conference, Madrid, June 1997; and C. Komanoff, R. Brailove, and J. Wallach, Good Money After Bad; An Economic Analysis of the Early Retirement of the Salem Nuclear Generating Station, Pace University School of Law Center for Environmental Legal Studies, White Plains, NY, September 1997, page 39. Notes: 1. Interest and depreciation assumed to be 10 percent in all cases. Capacity factor assumed to be 75 percent in all cases. 2. Btu stands for British thermal units. 1 Btu = about 1,055 joules. One kWhe (kilowatt-hour electrical) = 3.6 million joules = 3,413 Btu. 3. Non-fuel nuclear costs include 0.2 cents per kWhe for waste disposal and decommissioning, except in the worst case (case 3) where this cost is taken to be 0.5 cents per kWhe. See Cohn, p. 155. 4. The CO2 emissions avoided are calculated on the assumption that both types of power plants would displace existing coal fired power plants emitting 0.37 kilograms (carbon basis) per kWhe. For nuclear the avoided emissions would therefore be 0.37 kg, to a first approximation. For combined-cycle with 50 percent efficiency, the figure is about 0.25 kg per kWhe (emissions from the coal-fired power plant less the emissions from the combined-cycle plant). The avoided CO2 emissions figures for combined-cycle plants are likely to be increased for plants installed a few years hence, because the efficiency of these plants is increasing. 5. Efficiency of the combined cycle plant is assumed to be 50 percent. Higher efficiencies, approaching 60 percent, are expected in the next few years. We have assumed a natural gas fuel value of 1,000 Btu per cubit foot in these calculations. (Nuclear power plant thermal efficiency is about 33 percent. The exact figure does not affect power costs substantially, since fuel costs are a small fraction of total costs.) 6. Nuclear costs do not include any reprocessing and plutonium management costs. 7. The worst case capital cost of nuclear (case 3) was typical of US costs for plants coming on line after 1983 but with far higher capacity factor than was typical of the 1980s in the US. The best case nuclear capital cost (case 1) is that reported by the media for sales of Russian VVER-1000 reactors to China.