How much does it cost to build and maintain a nuclear power plant?
Answer This article from the world nuclear association gives a good overview of where the major contributors of cost are: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html Recently, costs for building new nuclear power plants in the US has tripled from previous estimates and in some cases, companies won’t make public actual costs. There is a big stink over this in South Carolina, I think. Capital investment costs for one 1500 MWe plant have ranged from $3 to $6 billion. That’s a big range, but a lot of the cost (~25%) comes from projected cost overruns and interest on loans over a long period of time. Anyway, there are some smaller reactor designs out there that may be more cost effective than traditional large plants. The actual cost of a nuclear plant to be built in the US will be evolving over the next decade as new supply and demand balances start developing as nuclear energy expands. So there probably won’t be a hard a fast number for the cost of a nuclear plant until one actual gets b
