Economics of Nuclear Reactor
Why Hacker News recommends it
It is the go-to short primer HN commenters cite to explain why nuclear is expensive upfront but cheap to run once the construction debt is paid.
What it is
A professor from Illinois compares the cost of building, fueling and operating a nuclear plant against a natural gas plant, using visual charts. It shows how construction time and interest rates dominate, when the investment pays off and when costs cross over.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec vermontdevil · 2020-10 · on “The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid of it”
You should watch this video (and several others) of this professor, David Ruzic from Uni of Illinois This video he talks about the economics of nuclear plant. [this video] This video, he talks about modular micro-nuclear reactor [LINK] His videos are great. Worth your time.
Strong rec orson2077 · 2025-05 · on “Investment Risk Is Highest for Nuclear Power Plants, Lowest for Solar”
For anyone interested in the economics of fission reactors, Illinois Energy Prof did a GREAT video a while back: [this video]
Recommends colechristensen · 2021-08 · on “Lawrence Livermore claims a milestone in laser fusion”
> is it going to be the catalyst that will enable humanity to accelerate wreaking havoc on what's left of our ecosystems? The question is how cheap can it get, can the energy production scale up vs cost, and how much does maintenance cost. This is a good video about fission energy production economics [this video] If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a competitively priced power plant, ok, we can reduce fossil fuel energy production towards zero in a few decades. That's pretty good for the environment but nothing really "new" is possible. If one of these fusion reactor projects results in a 10x reduction in the cost of electricity... then we have something new. Things that people di
Recommends mpweiher · 2025-04 · on “Germany Deserves a New Deal on Nuclear Energy from Merz”
That turns out not to be true. Here a short primer on the economics of nuclear reactors: [this video] Intermittent renewables on the other hand require massive subsidies.
Cites xupybd · 2020-01 · on “Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis?”
The economics of nuclear are good but not as good as you're implying. It takes a long time and a lot of money to start earning on a nuclear plant. Given the risks involved it's not that easy to build one. [this video] I don't think firing nuclear waste into space would be wise either. The risk of that blowing up on launch is high and the fall out from that would be a disaster.
Cites jtolmar · 2020-07 · on “ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly”
Here's a video where an energy professor goes through the finances of gas vs nuclear power (very slowly) - [this video] In short, it takes a very long time for a nuclear power plant to become profitable. Investors would rather pick something like gas that starts being profitable earlier, so they have the profits available to reinvest into other enterprises. I think this, rather than public perception, is why we don't do nuclear power (after all, our society does plenty of other things despite similar levels of outcry).
Cites cbmuser · 2021-01 · on “Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA”
Waste disposal or reprocessing are neglectible if you keep in mind that a single nuclear reactor produces electricity worth over one million US Dollars per day. See: [this video]
Cites Hammershaft · 2021-02 · on “Vertical farming does not save space”
In the short term nuclear energy is expensive, but in the long term nuclear energy is one the cheapest sources of energy available. Source - [this video] (this is even more true when you consider the cost of externalities)