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Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by Dopefish on Saturday February 22 2014, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-hail-the-almighty-atom dept.

CyberB0B39 writes: "The Department of Energy is set to approve $6.5B for a Georgia nuclear power plant, the first such plant in more than 3 decades. While other nuclear plants are shutting down due to competition from natural gas, Atlanta-based Southern Company is forging ahead with its planned construction of the plant."

[ED Note: "For those that are wondering, the new nuclear plant will be based on the AP1000 design by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, a company based in Pittsburgh, PA and a subsidiary of Toshiba."]

 
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  • (Score: 1) by TheRaven on Sunday February 23 2014, @09:33AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Sunday February 23 2014, @09:33AM (#5175) Journal

    The other problem with deploying solar is that the technology is advancing quite quickly. Fourth generation nuclear power plants have a planned lifetime of 50 or so years and have been around for a couple of decades. Unless there's some unexpected LENR or fusion breakthrough, you're better off building a nuclear power plant now and starting to use it than you are waiting for a few years and then building it.

    For solar, the value proposition is quite different. It has a large up-front cost with around a 10-year ROI, but within five years you're likely to be able to get panels that are either much more efficient or much cheaper (or both), making a five-year ROI feasible. Or, to put it another way, you can either spend that $13K now and be energy neutral and paid off in ten years, or spend it in five years and be energy neutral and paid off in ten years. Which makes more financial sense?

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