Nov 16, 2023 · 47m · catalyst
The cost of nuclear
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In this episode of Catalyst, host Shayle Khan and energy policy researcher Jessica Lovering deconstruct the economics of nuclear energy, examining international cost disparities, capital expenditure drivers, and the commercial promise of advanced modular reactors.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Shayle holds 31.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Shayle as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 1.3 Shayle pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Shayle, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 43:57 Defending NuScale cancellation as functional off-ramp
Lovering directly challenges the bleak framing of the NuScale cancellation, arguing that allowing municipal offtakers to walk away without incurring stranded debt proved the model worked as intended.
Hardest push from Shayle ▶ 23:15 Challenging the 15-design advanced reactor fragmentationKann sharply questions Lovering's premise, pointing out that having fifteen distinct advanced nuclear startups simultaneously attempting commercialization contradicts the need for standardized series learning.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:50 Deconstructing reactor capex componentsLovering cites a detailed AP1000 cost breakdown to show the actual nuclear island constitutes merely twelve percent of capex, with the overwhelming majority tied to civil groundwork and project soft costs.
Shayle holds their own ▶ 34:48 Synthesizing the circular volume and regulation loopKann synthesizes the regulatory and capex arguments into a precise structural thesis, proving that US nuclear expense is primarily driven by missing demand-pull policies and zero deployment scale.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Shayle as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Shayle pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canary Media Donation Drive and Latitude Media Promotion | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue ad and housekeeping segment by Stephen Lacey and Voiceover promoting Canary Media, Latitude Media, Bloom Energy, Engie, and Energy Hub. | |
| Framing the Polarized Debate Around Nuclear Energy Costs | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Host monologue introducing the episode's focus on nuclear fission capex and framing the polarized arguments between techno-optimists and critics. | |
| Global Nuclear Landscape and International Deployment Trends | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Kann asks about global deployment patterns, and Lovering walks through active builds across Asia, the UAE's 5.6 GW Barakah project, and European reconsiderations. | |
| Global Cost Disparities and Standardized Reactor Series | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Kann offers context comparing nuclear capex variability to solar soft costs and questions historical generation economics against future target metrics of sixty dollars per megawatt hour. | |
| China's Nuclear Buildout, Localization, and Management Lessons | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Lovering breaks down China's construction pace, 80 percent supply chain localization, and the critical role of standardized repeat deployments over material inputs. | |
| Deconstructing Nuclear Plant Capital Costs and Civil Works | 6 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Lovering presents empirical capex breakdowns showing the nuclear reactor itself is only 12 percent of total plant cost. Kann pushes back with a counterargument that having fifteen disparate startup designs undermines series learning benefits. | |
| Advanced Nuclear Designs, Learning Curves, and Factory Modularity | 5 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Lovering draws an analogy to commercial wide-body aircraft duopolies and cites academic literature on smaller reactor sizes yielding faster learning rates. | |
| Mid-Roll Commercial Break: Bloom Energy and Engie | 6 | 6 | 2 | 4 | After a brief mid-roll ad read, Lovering uses a convective soup pot analogy for passive safety, and Kann probes whether capex inflation is fundamentally regulatory or driven by a circular lack of volume. | |
| Assessing the NuScale Cancellation and the Advanced Reactor Horizon | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Kann brings up the NuScale UAMPS project cancellation and questions whether six-year commercialization timelines for microreactors and SMRs are realistic. | |
| Managing Cost Uncertainty, Alternative Business Models, and Outlook | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Kann presses on utility cost uncertainty and contract risk structures, while Lovering details fixed-price order book amortization, BOO structures, and shifting policy winds. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Kann: Cost overruns have hit basically every recent US nuclear project
“On the expensive side, you can look at the cost overruns that have hit basically every recent reactor development in the United States and in some other countries, whether traditional reactor types or so-called small modular reactors.”
Kann: Nuclear costs are falling in some international markets
“On the cheap side, you can look both at the past, when we have actually built pretty cheap nuclear, and at the rest of the world today, where in some countries, costs have been going down and continuing to get lower and lower.”
Lovering: Over 30 newcomer countries are seeking their first nuclear plants
“There are also, like, over 30 countries that are looking to develop their first nuclear power plants.”
Lovering: South Korea builds the cheapest nuclear reactors at ~$2,200/kW
“I would say that the cheapest nuclear in the world, and I'm so glad that your audience can understand if I say dollars per kilowatt is in South Korea, and that's about 2200 dollars per kilowatt.”
Lovering: US and Finnish nuclear projects reached ~$8,000 per kilowatt
“The Vogel project, which just finished in the U.S., is, is probably at the high end. I think the project that just came online in Finland is probably up at this level as well. It's about 8000 dollars per kilowatt, so four times more.”
Lovering: US existing nuclear electricity is second-cheapest after hydro
“In the US, nuclear, existing nuclear power, the electricity generated is the second cheapest only after hydroelectric.”
Lovering: Standardized series reactor construction drives down nuclear costs
“Really what, you know, what makes nuclear cheap and where nuclear is cheapest, whether you're looking at history or where it's cheap currently, it's where, you Countries and utilities are building a lot of reactors in series of a standardized design. And the, …”
Lovering: China Has 22 Nuclear Reactors Under Construction, Will Surpass France
“China's, has the most nuclear under construction of any country. It has about, ah, I think, 22 reactors under construction right now. When those are Complete. Actually, just when a few more come online, they will surpass France as having the largest fleet of n…”
Lovering: China Builds Nuclear Power at Roughly $2,500 per Kilowatt
“We can say China's probably building at about 2500 dollars per kilowatt, so not quite as cheap as South Korea, but, you know, nowhere near the U.S., and again, that's probably because they're building a lot of the same design.”
Lovering: Nuclear Costs Are Driven by Engineering and Management, Not Materials
“A lot of the cost of nuclear is, is not necessarily in, like, concrete and steel. It's a lot of, like, engineering and design costs and project management”
Lovering: The nuclear island is only 12% of total AP1000 plant cost
“The actual, like, nuclear Component was called the nuclear island, so it's like the reactor, the pressure, containment structure. That's only like, 12% of the total cost, so that nuclear part is very small.”
Lovering: Nuclear costs are high because plants are built like custom infrastructure
“Why is nuclear so expensive, is that they're still built, like, large infrastructure projects. It's not like building a car or an airplane. It's like building a highway or hydroelectric dam or a bridge. Each one's very unique, and so these, you know, secondary…”
Lovering: US will not see eight nuclear companies build thousands of reactors
“And so, I don't think we're gonna have, you know, eight companies building thousands of reactors in the U.S. But I do think we're gonna get demonstrations of several, and we'll probably see which ones work, and some of them aren't gonna work”
Lovering: Studies show smaller energy technologies have faster learning rates
“So one is Wilson et al. 20 20 and Swartz et al. 20 20, but they both look at the size of energy technologies and their learning rates, and they find that across all sorts of energy technologies, batteries, generators, the smaller they are, the faster they lear…”
Lovering: Passive safety lowers advanced nuclear manufacturing and O&M costs
“A lot of them rely on passive safety. So it's safety that's derived from physical processes, not engineered systems. And why that matters in a simple way Way to explain it is that you can have much simpler engineering, so it reduces complexity in the design, a…”
Lovering: South Korea's nuclear regulation is largely modeled on US NRC
“It's not that South Korea has a vastly different regulator. It's actually modeled much on the U.S., and the U.S. Regulator, the NRC, is considered the gold standard, and a lot of other countries follow our example.”
Lovering: Lack of demand-pull policy drove high US nuclear costs
“What's really been missing with nuclear in terms of policy to help bring down the cost is that demand pull policy. And so this is why you see that nuclear is cheaper and gets cheaper over time in places that have a lot of growth in demand for electricity becau…”
Lovering: Factory-fabricated nuclear reactors require aircraft-style bulk licensing
“What will be needed is if we're doing really modular plants, like factory fabricated reactors, that will definitely need a regulatory change, because we don't have those sorts of bulk licenses, like you do for aircraft manufacturing.”
Lovering: Handful of advanced nuclear projects will come online before 2030
“I think we'll probably see ground start to get broken in maybe the next five years, and probably, I would say, a handful of projects coming online before 2030.”
Lovering: SMR developers may offer fixed-price contracts for early reactor builds
“So you might see something similar like that, probably not for the first of a kind, but for the second, third, fourth of a kind, saying, okay, we're going to, you are going to pay, you know, 3000 per kilowatt fixed price, no matter what it costs us.”
Lovering: Microreactor developers are shifting to build-own-operate PPA models
“And then some other companies, particularly more on the microreactor side, are looking at doing more like a build-own-operate model, where they'd be selling electricity through a power purchase agreement, which, you know, looks very different. So the company w…”