how much did it cost to build to build sizwell b newclear power station. also cost to build one today?

Answer 1

"Wednesday October 5, 2005
The Guardian


Doubters: 'It strains the logic of energy economics'
Dave Toke
Senior research fellow in environmental policy at the University of Birmingham

It is not difficult to compare the amounts of money required to install wind power and nuclear power to produce 20% of UK electricity - nuclear currently provides 21%. The most recent nuclear power station built was Sizewell B in Suffolk, which started generating in 1995 and delivers almost 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of electricity. At 1991 prices, it cost £2,733m to install, which is around £3.7bn today. All this money came directly from the state.

Add on the interest that would have to be paid to banks on money borrowed during its 13 years of construction, and the cost of Sizewell B is over £4bn. Even if it was producing full power for 95% of the time - an optimistic estimate - it would be generating about 3.1% of UK electricity supplies, according to Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) estimates for 2005.

So we would need the equivalent of about six-and-a-half of these power stations to supply around 20% of UK electricity. Hence, based on the cost of Sizewell B, this would involve investments of at least £26bn.

By contrast, according to a report published recently by the DTI, British onshore windfarms cost around £870m per GW to install and offshore windfarms around £1,110m per GW. These costings for offshore windfarms do not include grid connection, which costs up to around £1,250m per GW. Assuming equal amounts of onshore and offshore wind power, this produces an average of around £1,060m per GW. As we know, the wind is intermittent and, according to DTI calculations, British windfarms work on average at a rate of 30% of full generating capacity. This means we would need around 24GW of wind power to supply 20% of UK electricity, costing around £25bn to install.

So, if we use the evidence of actual installation costs, as opposed to what nuclear (or wind) advocates hope will be future installation costs, we can see that, on installation costs alone, a nuclear power programme is going to be no cheaper than a wind power programme in delivering 20% of UK electricity. Nuclear advocates maintain that if we built a series of nuclear power stations then the costs would be a lot lower than that of Sizewell B. They are probably right, but then renewable energy advocates are also probably correct when they say the costs of wind power are likely to decline by large amounts in future years.

But there are other cost factors that invariably count against nuclear power in comparison with wind power. Nuclear power stations have major decommissioning costs. Although the return of wind power installations to greenfield conditions is straightforward, this is far from the case with nuclear power stations. There is disagreement about the scale of decommissioning costs, but the numbers tend to be rather large. Latest figures from the Environment Agency suggest anywhere between £300m and a £1,000m per power station. "

From: http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1584572,00.html

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

cfpops answered this question well.

There are also the other considerations of storing, processing, and finding a proper disposal of spent fuel from the reactors - something that our government in the US refuses to address so that our nuclear program is in disarray. A very poor situation.

Also not included are any variances in the regulatory climate and the additional cost of any upgrades or changes they may decide to impose. Also, there is the environmentalists and their sometimes ridiculous claims that must be addressed. These all add to the cost of continuing to use nuclear power.

Do not get me wrong, I am a nuclear engineer and believe that we must continue to develop fission and fusion power plants to meet our future needs. The frustrating part is the short sightedness of people in seeing this and demanding that nuclear power be stopped.

Answer 3

You should learn about much else, including spelling, before concerning yourself with matters well beyond your intellectual assimilation or understanding.

Answer 4

It will be costly and on the other hand does it matter if has saved a lot of global warming.

Answer 5

whats the question?

Answer 6

40m......
today costs£200m